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Conflict-Management Styles: Pitfalls and Best Practices

Conflict-management styles can affect how disputes play out in organizations and beyond. research on conflict-management styles offers advice on managing such difficult situations..

By Katie Shonk — on July 2nd, 2024 / Conflict Resolution

People approach conflict differently, depending on their innate tendencies, their life experiences, and the demands of the moment. Negotiation and conflict-management research reveals how our differing conflict-management styles mesh with best practices in conflict resolution.

A Model of Conflict-Management Styles

In 1974, Kenneth W. Thomas and Ralph H. Kilmann introduced a questionnaire, the Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument , designed to measure people’s conflict styles. Based on people’s responses to pairs of statements, the instrument categorizes respondents into five different conflict styles:

• Competing. When adopting a competing style, people view interpersonal conflict resolution as win-lose games. Rather than recognizing the value of ensuring that each party walks away satisfied, disputants focus narrowly on claiming as much as they can for themselves. While value claiming is an important component of negotiation, a single-minded competitive orientation sacrifices value in the long run and perpetuates conflict.
• Avoiding. Because dealing with conflict directly can be highly uncomfortable, many of us prefer to avoid it. An avoidant conflict style might at first appear to be the opposite of a competitive style, but in fact, it can be similarly obstructive. When we avoid conflict, we often allow problems to grow worse.
• Accommodating. Because they defer so often to others, negotiators who adopt an accommodating style can seem agreeable and easygoing. But when people consistently put others’ needs first, they are liable to experience resentment that builds up over time. Accommodating negotiators typically will benefit from learning to express their needs and concerns.
• Compromising. Sometimes we try to resolve conflict by proposing seemingly equal compromises, such as meeting in the middle between two extreme positions, or by making a significant compromise just to move forward. Although a compromising conflict style can move a conversation forward, the solution is often unsatisfying and temporary because it doesn’t address the root issues at stake.
• Collaborating. Those who adopt a collaborative conflict-resolution style work to understand the deeper needs behind other parties’ demands and to express their own needs. They see value in working through strong emotions that come up, and they propose tradeoffs across issues that will give each side more of what they want.

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A collaborative negotiation style is usually the most effective style for managing conflict and fostering productive long-term relationships; however, different conflict-management styles can be effectively applied to different phases and types of conflict in management. Moreover, though we may have a predisposition toward a particular conflict style, we adopt different styles depending on the situation.

Competing is often useful when you’ve jointly created value through collaboration and now need to divide up resources. Accommodating may be the best immediate choice when your boss is unhappy about a project that went awry. Avoiding can be wise when someone seems volatile or when we don’t expect to deal with them again. And compromising can be a fine way of resolving a minor issue quickly.

Conflict-Management Styles : Lessons from Marriage Research

Can people with different conflict-management styles get along? In his book Why Marriages Succeed or Fail . . . and How You Can Make Yours Last (Simon & Schuster, 1995), psychologist John Gottman writes that healthy marriages tend to settle into three different styles of problem solving: validating (compromising often and working out problems to mutual satisfaction), conflict-avoidant (agreeing to disagree and rarely confronting differences directly), and volatile (frequently engaging in passionate disputes).

Perhaps surprisingly, Gottman’s research suggests that “all three styles are equally stable and bode equally well for the marriage’s future,” as he writes. Which style a couple leans toward isn’t important; what’s more important for lasting satisfaction is that both spouses adopt the same style.

Though Gottman’s research was conducted on married couples, the results suggest that disputants in the business world who have similar conflict-management styles may find they feel comfortable managing (or avoiding) conflict with each other.

When Conflict-Management Styles Are Complementary

By contrast, in the realm of negotiation, the results of a 2015 study published in the journal Negotiation and Conflict Management Research by Scott Wiltermuth, Larissa Z. Tiedens, and Margaret Neale found benefits when pairs of participants used one of two different negotiating styles.

They assigned study participants to engage in a negotiation simulation using either a dominant or submissive negotiating style. Those assigned to be dominant were told to express their preferences with confidence, use expansive body postures, and otherwise try to influence their counterpart. Those assigned to the submissive style were told to be cooperative, agreeable, and conflict avoidant.

Interestingly, pairs in which one party behaved dominantly and the other submissively achieved better results in the negotiation than pairs who were in the same condition (whether dominance, submission, or a control group). It seems the pairs of dominant/submissive negotiators benefited from their complementary communication style. A pattern in which one person stated her preferences directly and the other asked questions enabled the negotiators to claim the most value. By asking questions, the submissive negotiators assessed how to meet their own goals—and helped their dominant counterparts feel respected and competent in the process.

The research we’ve covered on negotiation and conflict-management styles suggests that opportunities to work through differences abound, regardless of our natural tendencies. Rather than spending a lot of time diagnosing each other’s conflict-management styles, strive for open collaboration that confronts difficult emotions and encourages joint problem solving.

What lessons about conflict-management styles have you learned in your own negotiation and conflict-resolution efforts?

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Exploring the relationships between team leader’s conflict management styles and team passion: From the emotional perspective

Associated data.

The raw data supporting the conclusions of this article will be made available by the authors, without undue reservation.

From the emotional perspective, this study explores how team leader’s conflict management styles affect team passion. A theoretical model is constructed which describes the mediating role of positive team emotional climate and the moderating impact of team emotional intelligence. We collect 101 teams paired data including 101 team leaders and 383 team members to test theoretical model. It is shown that leader’s cooperative conflict management style has a significant positive effect on both positive team emotional climate and team passion. Meanwhile, positive team emotional climate plays a mediating role between leader’s cooperative conflict management style and team passion. In addition, team emotional intelligence has a moderating effect between leader’s cooperative style and positive team emotional climate. This study not only provides a new perspective for follow-up research but also expands the research scope of impacts of conflict management styles. In addition, this study forms the underlying mechanism of team leader’s conflict management styles on team passion from the emotional perspective and investigates the mediating effect and moderating effect of emotional variable, which broadens the research on the mechanisms of conflict management styles on team outcomes to a certain extent.

Introduction

Team work, which emphasizes collaboration and division of labor, is very effective in improving the flexibility of enterprises to cope with the ever-changing internal and external environment. Due to this, teams are widely used in organizations. In a team, the leader and members, for the most part, differ in their backgrounds, preferences, needs, standards, norms, values, and ethics, but they need to actively cooperate and interact to achieve organizational goals ( García and Corbett, 2013 ). Therefore, conflicts within the team are everywhere and unavoidable. Conflict itself is harmless and its handling styles can greatly impact the team or the organization. If it is not properly handled, it may lead to the instability among teams or organizations in the short to long term. However, if it is properly handled, it can bring positive results to the long-term development of the team or the organization ( Shih and Susanto, 2010 ; Way et al., 2016 ). Consequently, it seems studying conflict management is more worthy rather than conflict itself in this particular setting. Whether in organizational-level or team-level, conflicts occur either between employees or between employees and leaders. Raithel et al. (2021) propose that team leaders have a critical effect to deal with conflicts in the team. Therefore, team leader’s conflict management style (CMS) as one of the most important manifestations of leaders’ behaviors, which probably has a significant effect on team members’ attitudes and behaviors.

The existing literature on the influences of CMSs usually split them into two categories. One focuses on the impacts on team climate and team performance ( Shih and Susanto, 2010 ; Tabassi et al., 2018 ; Wang et al., 2020 ), the other is concerned about the impacts on employees’ attitudes and behaviors ( Erkutlu and Chafra, 2015 ; Leon-Perez et al., 2015 ; Way et al., 2016 ; Einarsen et al., 2018 ). Generally, most of related studies are based on cognitive rather than emotional perspective. With the cognitive perspective, previous studies mainly investigate the impacts of CMSs on individual and team outcomes based on social cognitive theory and social exchange theory such as employee innovation ( Desivilya et al., 2010 ) and team coordination ( Tabassi et al., 2018 ). However, a few scholars attempt to probe the relationships between conflict management styles and emotional related outcomes including collective emotional exhaustion ( Benitez et al., 2018 ) and emotional intelligence ( Al-Hamdan et al., 2019 ) with an emotional perspective. Yin et al. (2020b) believes that emotion is a very vital notion for a team. Since many human emotions are generated in interpersonal communication, emotion is critical to a team, especially as the internal mechanism that helps us understand team state and behavior ( Chiang et al., 2020 ). Therefore, it is necessary to consider emotions when carrying out team related studies. Team passion is an important affective factor in teams. Passion refers to individual’s strong inclination to devote time and energy to activities that they like and think important ( Vallerand et al., 2003a ), which can be seen as an attitude based on affection. Permarupan et al. (2013) put forward that behaviors of team members can be evaluated by passions toward their given tasks and roles in the team. Therefore, team passion plays a crucial role in the team as a typical team emotional state. Some scholars explore the factors that affect team passion such as transformational leadership ( Peng et al., 2020 ), shared leadership ( Salas-Vallina et al., 2022 ), temporal leadership ( Zhang et al., 2022 ), and empowering leadership ( Hao et al., 2017 ). It can be seen that leader’s behavior is an impossible-to-ignore antecedent of team passion. A few other scholars attempt to investigate the impact of another common typical leader’s behavior—team leader’s CMSs on team passion. Yin et al. (2020a) prove that team leader’s CMSs have a direct effect on team passion. However, there is no research to explore the mechanism through which that team leader’s conflict management styles impact on team passion by now. Do team leader’s CMSs have indirect effects on team passion by some mediators besides the direct effect? This manuscript is trying to response to the question by examining the intrinsic mechanism between them from the emotional perspective.

On the basis of affective events theory, it considers that work environment characteristics or work events can trigger employees’ affective reactions thus leading to changes of employees’ work attitudes and behaviors, we can infer that team leader’s conflict management styles, as a team event, are likely to influence team passion—a kind of team members’ attitude, through the mediation of some team emotional reaction. Therefore, it is expected that conflict management styles significantly influence team passion. Positive team emotional climate is an important variable of affective reactions ( Levecque et al., 2014 ). Some scholars demonstrated that leader’s behaviors helps to create a team emotional climate ( Chiang et al., 2020 ; Kim et al., 2021 ; Saleh et al., 2022 ). Therefore, this manuscript intends to probe the mediating role of positive team emotional climate. Furthermore, team emotional intelligence (TEI) is a kind of emotional abilities for people to comprehend, manage, and make use of affective information ( Salovey and Mayer, 1990 ). Barsade (2002) proposed that emotional contagion has great influence on individual attitudes and group processes. People who can better perceive other’s emotions have the ability to consider the influence of their behaviors on others ( Ingram et al., 2017 ), then decides the ways to adjust or express his emotions and his emotional impact. Similarly, a team with high TEI is more likely to infect other members’ emotions due that they are able to better perceive, understand and predict other members’ emotions. Consequently, this study posits team emotional intelligence moderates the relationships between team leader’s conflict management styles and team emotional variables.

In conclusion, the purpose of this manuscript is to investigate the mediating mechanism of team leader’s conflict management style on team passion and to determine the boundary condition of these impacts with emotional perspective. The results of this paper can make the following contributions to existing studies of conflict management. On the one hand, this paper expands the research scope of impacts of conflict management styles. On the other hand, this manuscript investigates the mediating and moderating effects of emotional variables between CMSs and team passion, which broadens the study on the mechanisms of CMSs on team outcomes to a certain extent.

Structure of the other parts of the manuscript is as below. The second part discusses the relationships among team leader’s CMSs, positive team emotional climate, and team passion. Furthermore, this part also discusses how TEI plays a moderating role between CMSs and positive team emotional climate. The third part discusses the method of this manuscript, then is the results and the discussions of results. Finally, the fourth part presents theoretical and practical implications, and put forward research limitations and future research agenda.

Literature review and hypothesis

The conflict management theory is mainly originated from Management Grid Theory proposed by Blake and Mouton, which the management model is divided into five different degrees based on two dimensions. Rahim (1983) summarizes five types of CMSs in work teams, i.e., integrating, dominating, avoiding, compromising, and obliging. Then, Thomas (2008) divides CMSs into five kinds: cooperation, competition, avoidance, compromise, and adaptation. However, some scholars question the five-factor classification in virtue of high correlations between different styles ( Ross and DeWine, 1988 ). For example, both compromising and avoiding aim at reducing the differences between the two parties involved in the conflict through indirect and circuitous ways. Besides, collaborating/integrating and compromising concentrates on emphasizing the common interests of both parties so as to calm the contradiction. Tjosvold (1998) divides the conflict management styles into three types: cooperative, competitive, and avoidant.

Cooperative conflict management style embodies an attempt to integrate all people’s interests, which emphasize the openness of others’ viewpoints, considering the interests of both sides and seek a satisfactory solution. Competitive conflict management style only thinks about their own interest and its typical manifestation is that one party’s power dominates the other. Avoidant conflict management style is characterized by flickering words, usually adopting evasive and avoidant methods when facing conflicts. People who adopt this style are not concerned about the outcome of the conflict. Team leaders, as the core of teams, have the duty to organize team and solve problems by using the resources such as human, financial, and material in work teams. Hence, team leaders prefer positive conflict management styles including cooperative and competitive rather than negative ones such as avoidant. Based on this classification, many scholars choose the styles of cooperative and competitive to conduct related research ( Somech et al., 2009 ; Shih and Susanto, 2010 ; Esbati and Korunka, 2021 ). Consequently, this manuscript selects cooperative and competitive conflict management styles for research.

Team leader’s conflict management styles and positive team emotional climate

The existing literature on the impacts of CMSs is able to split into two categories. One focuses on the impacts on team climate and team performance. Some studies confirm that different conflict management styles have different significant impacts on work performance ( Shih and Susanto, 2010 ; Tabassi et al., 2018 ; Wang et al., 2020 ). Others concern about the impacts on members’ attitudes and behaviors, such as job dissatisfaction, bullying behavior, voice behavior, trust, and emotional exhaustion ( Erkutlu and Chafra, 2015 ; Leon-Perez et al., 2015 ; Way et al., 2016 ; Einarsen et al., 2018 ; Esbati and Korunka, 2021 ). As for the influences of leader’s conflict management styles, studies explore their impacts on team performance, employee behaviors, and team climate ( Hempel et al., 2009 ; Erkutlu and Chafra, 2015 ; Tabassi et al., 2018 ) according to social cognitive theory, social exchange theory, and other related theories from the cognitive perspective. Chiang et al. (2020) believe that emotional factors play important roles in team activities. Thus, it is necessary to explore how team leader’s CMSs influence team emotional factors from the emotional rather than the cognitive perspective, so as to provide greater values of conflict management for team development. Scholars generally divide emotions into two dimensions, positive and negative emotions. Positive emotions serve as markers of flourishing, or optimal well-being and in peoples’ lives can be expressed as joy, interest, contentment, and love ( Fredrickson, 2001 ). Negative emotions reduce individual pleasure, as shown in anxiety, sadness, anger, and despair ( Fredrickson, 2001 ; Rank and Frese, 2008 ). When the internal consistency coefficient of emotion in the team is high, which indicates that the emotions of team members are consistent, team emotional climate can be considered to exist ( George and Bettenhausen, 1990 ). Liu et al. (2008) propose that team emotional climate is a common perception of team members to moods and affective interaction in a team which characterizes a team and has a significant influence on teams and members.

As mentioned above, affective events theory emphasizes that work environment characteristics and work events can trigger emotional reactions of employees. Team leader’s behavior, as an event, can affect team members’ emotions and create some team emotional climate. Some researches suggest that leader’s behavior is essential to create team emotional climate ( Chiang et al., 2020 ; Kim et al., 2021 ; Saleh et al., 2022 ). Eisenbeiss et al. (2008) discover that transformational leadership positively impact on team climate shaping. Chiang et al. (2020) declare that authoritarian leadership has a positive relationship with motion suppression climate. Therefore, as one of the significant manifestations of team leader’s behaviors, team leader’s conflict management styles should be able to influence team climate. When dealing with conflicts, team leaders who adopt the cooperative approach usually show respects for team members’ views and actively take a relatively fair way to communicate with team members so as to promote cooperation among the teams, which make team members feel relaxed, equal, free and happy, thus promoting a positive team emotional climate ( Liu et al., 2008 ). Instead, team leaders who adopt the competitive approach tend to impose their opinions on team members. It will lead team members in a passive state which may make them produce negative emotions such as disappointment, tension, suspicion, and fear. It can be inferred that these negative emotions are possible to hinder communications among team members and even aggravate interpersonal relationships, resulting in the deterioration of positive team emotional climate. According to the analysis above, we put forward the following hypotheses:

H1: Team leader’s conflict management styles significantly affect positive team emotional climate.

H1a: Team leader’s cooperative conflict management style has a positive relationship with positive team emotional climate.

H1b: Team leader’s competitive conflict management style has a negative relationship with positive team emotional climate.

Team leader’s conflict management styles and team passion

By now, most of current researches on the influences of conflict management styles are conducted from a cognitive perspective. As emotions have always influenced behaviors, it is valuable to probe the influence of CMSs on emotional factors at team level ( Yin et al., 2020a ). Team passion is a kind of emotional factor which plays a vital role in teams ( Salas-Vallina et al., 2020 , 2022 ; Mindeguia et al., 2021b ). Based on self-determination theory, Vallerand et al. (2003b) define passion as an intensive inclination for people to invest time and effort toward an activity that they like and think is important and categorized it into both harmonious and obsessive passion. The meaning of harmonious passion is internalization by self-determination, which conducts people to join in an activity choicefully and freely. In comparison, obsessive passion comes from an interesting activity that is internalization by non-self-determined method. This kind of passion adjusts actions that are inconsistent with one’s self-concept ( Vallerand et al., 2003b ). This manuscript discusses about harmonious passion. Although passion is not clearly defined at the team level ( Cardon et al., 2009 ), many scholars research the role of passion at the team level ( Permarupan et al., 2013 ; Hao et al., 2017 ; Peng et al., 2020 ; Uy et al., 2021 ; Salas-Vallina et al., 2022 ; Zhang et al., 2022 ). Hence, this manuscript defines team passion as the degree with which a team experiences strong enthusiasm and investment to the team. Because work is indispensable in life, scholars have paid more attention to the passion in the workplace recently ( Vallerand et al., 2003b ; Zigarmi et al., 2009 ; Perttula and Cardon, 2012 ). One line of research has investigated how leaders influence employees’ passion. It is found that leader’s behavior significantly impacts staffs’ work passion, for example, ambidextrous leadership ( Ma J.F. et al., 2018 ) and shared leadership ( Salas-Vallina et al., 2022 ) positively influence members’ work passion. When team leaders adopt cooperative CMS, they usually encourage team members to actively share different viewpoints for discussion, deepen mutual understanding, and promote better cooperation between them. This can help members establish their values in the team and make them willing or even eager to benefit the team and the organization, thus enhancing the team passion. Whereas, team leaders adopt competitive conflict management style tend to impose their thoughts on members. Team members in a passive state may have negative emotions, which hinder the willingness of communication and even aggravate the degree of interpersonal conflicts, thus negatively affecting team passion. According to the analysis above, we propose the following hypotheses:

H2: Team leader’s conflict management styles have significant impacts on team passion.

H2a: Team leader’s cooperative conflict management style is positively related to team passion.

H2b: Team leader’s competitive conflict management style is negatively related to team passion.

The mediating role of positive team emotional climate

The positive team emotional climate refers to the shared perception of the moods and affective interactions among team members as mentioned above ( Liu et al., 2008 ). With positive team emotional climate, there is likely to create a positive emotional “infection” effect within teams, which can produce or maintain a positive emotional state within teams. Based on affective events theory, emotion is considered as a mediating mechanism in the event-outcome relationship. Team members develop shared attitudes, emotional responses, and behavioral patterns through shared experiences or events, and then it will have an influence on team attitudes and behaviors at a higher level conversely. Work passion requires strong positive emotions and internal driving forces and includes the emotional experience of strong work orientation, which leads employees to consider their work as an inner part and want to devote time and energy in it ( Vallerand et al., 2003a ; Birkeland and Nerstad, 2016 ). That is to say, team leader’s conflict management style, as a kind of leadership behavior, can be regarded as a common experience by team members, thus shaping team emotional climate and further stimulating team passion. Yin et al. (2020a) propose that team leader’s conflict management style positively affects positive team emotional climate. Zhu et al. (2022) also prove that paternalistic leadership is positively related to positive team emotional climate. In addition, Permarupan et al. (2013) confirm that the positive organizational climate is conducive to promoting employees’ work passion. Moreover, Mindeguia et al. (2021a) prove that positive climate is a mediating variable between transformational leadership and team passion.

Leaders who adopt a cooperative conflict management style are usually committed to achieving satisfactory results for both parties ( Tjosvold et al., 2006 ). They try to integrate the interests of all members together to form a common best solution ( Tjosvold et al., 2006 ; Desivilya et al., 2010 ). Then, they pay attention to members’ feedback in time and form a free and pleasant environment for communication, thus stimulating the positive emotions of team members and building a positive team emotional climate. Meanwhile, the positive emotional climate makes team members feel comfortable and motivates their passion. Therefore, leader’s cooperative CMS improves team passion by building a positive team emotional climate. Similarly, leader’s competitive CMS reduces team passion by inhibiting positive team emotional climate. Based on hypothesis 1, hypothesis 2, and the above illustration, we propose the following hypotheses:

H3: Positive team emotional climate mediates the relationships between team leader’s conflict management styles and team passion.

The moderating effect of team emotional intelligence

The meaning of team emotional intelligence (TEI) is the competence of teams to formulate a series of standards to manage the processes of emotion ( Lee and Wong, 2017 ). TEI is very important to improve the cooperation and cohesion of team members and promote the behavior of improving team efficiency ( Lee and Wong, 2017 ). Wong and Law (2002) divide TEI as consisting of four dimensions: others’ emotion appraisal (OEA), self-emotion appraisal (SEA), regulation of emotion (ROE), and use of emotion (UOE). Among them, OEA is considered as the ability of individual to sense, comprehend and forecast other emotions. People who have such competence highly are more sensitive to others’ affections ( Wong and Law, 2002 ). Ma and Liu (2019) propose that the impact of emotional intelligence in the context of conflict rests with OEA. Therefore, this manuscript adopts the dimension of OEA to represent and operationalize TEI. TEI is often considered as a method to solve challenging interpersonal relationships ( Samiuddin et al., 2017 ). Miao et al. (2016) proved that emotional intelligence is possible to improve the degree of team members’ satisfaction. TEI can enhance the connection among coworkers, improve the quality of information exchange and decision-making, and reduce conflict in teams ( Lee and Wong, 2017 ). Team with higher emotional intelligence can inspire the confidence and cooperation of team members, thereby building a positive and harmonious working atmosphere, thus promoting communication among members and reducing conflicts ( Rego et al., 2007 ). Therefore, higher emotional intelligence is preferable to perceive the emotional fluctuations of team members in teams. A high TEI team can timely detect members with negative emotions and prompt them to revitalize themselves ( Stubbs and Wolff, 2008 ), which can help create a more positive team emotional climate. We could inferred that high TEI is conducive to communication and conflict resolution in team, and thus improve the positive influence of cooperative CMS on positive team emotional climate and weaken the negative influence of competitive CMS on positive team emotional climate. Teams with low emotional intelligence may not easily recognize the tensions among members and the changes of members’ emotions, in which the barriers to communication between team members become more severe. Thus, low TEI could weaken the positive influence of cooperative CMS on positive team emotional climate and enhance the negative influence of competitive CMS on positive team emotional climate. Then the following hypotheses are proposed:

H4: Team emotional intelligence plays a moderating role between team leader’s conflict management styles and positive team emotional climate.

H4a: High team emotional intelligence enhances the positive influence of cooperative CMS on positive team emotional climate and weakens the negative influence of competitive CMS on positive team emotional climate.

H4b: Low team emotional intelligence weakens the positive influence of cooperative CMS on positive team emotional climate and enhances the negative influence of competitive CMS on positive team emotional climate.

Mindeguia et al. (2021b) propose that high emotional intelligence teams take on the role of “emotion manager” so as to create positive affective events for team members, which can arose passion of team members. Similar to the positive team emotional climate, high TEI teams could rapidly find out the members who lack passion for work and enhance their love for the team. By increasing less-passion members involvement in work, team passion could also be enhanced, which is conducive to the harmonious resolution of conflicts. Mindeguia et al. (2021b) put forward that there is a significant positive relationship between team emotional intelligence and passion. Therefore, this paper infers that teams with high TEI are sensitive to low-passionate members, while teams with low TEI are not. Consequently, high TEI could enhance the positive influence of cooperative CMS on team passion and weaken the negative influence of competitive CMS. On the contrary, low TEI could weaken the positive influence of cooperative CMS on team passion and enhance the negative influence of competitive CMS. Furthermore, Yin et al. (2020b) prove that the moderating role of TEI between team leader’s CMSs and team passion. Therefore, the following hypotheses are proposed.

H5: TEI has a moderating role between team leader’s conflict management styles and team passion.

H5a: High TEI enhances the positive influence of cooperative conflict management style on team passion and weakens the negative influence of competitive conflict management style on team passion.

H5b: Low TEI weakens the positive influence of cooperative conflict management style on team passion and enhances the negative influence of competitive conflict management style on team passion.

Therefore, the hypothesized model is displayed in Figure 1 .

Conflict management styles on positive team emotional climate and team passion.

Materials and methods

Sample and data collection.

In this paper, we conduct surveys to state-owned enterprises and internet enterprises in Beijing, Shenzhen, Shenyang, China, such as Baidu, Tencent, JD.COM, and Original Chemical by contacting relevant managers of these enterprises ahead of time and visiting the work places with the help of acquaintances and MBA alumni. This study collected team data in departments, which mainly work in a small group, such as sales, R&D, and propaganda, were chosen for the research. Because of the different size of work teams, each team surveyed a team leader and 3–6 team members. Finally, 484 valid surveys were collected, including 101 team leaders and 383 team members. We used anonymous questionnaire to ensure that it can truly reflect the respondents’ ideas. Questionnaires related to conflict management style were responded by leaders, while those related to team passion, positive team emotional climate and TEI were responded by team members. In order to match team leaders and members, we designed three items such as “what’s you last name” and “what’s your team leader’s last name.” For team leader, 86.79% respondents were males. On the aspect of age, 62.86% of the respondents was between 26 and 35 years, which is the most. The largest proportion held a bachelor degree, reaching 65.7%. After that, master degree or above reached 13.3%. The rest are below bachelor degree. In terms of working years, 50.48% respondents have been working for 6–10 years. For team members, 75.82% respondents were males. On the aspect of age, respondents between 26 and 35 years arrived 60.71%, which is the most. 84.9% respondents held a bachelor degree, then master degree or above reached 7.5%, the rest are below bachelor degree. 51.13% respondents have been working for 0–5 years.

We selected internationally established scales and translated into Chinese to measure these variables. To ensure the equivalency of meaning, we translated questionnaire from English to Chinese and back to English. We adopted Likert five-point scale to measure the items of the questionnaire.

Conflict management styles

In this paper, we measured team leader’s cooperative and competitive conflict management styles by the scale established by Tjosvold et al. (2006) . It measured cooperative and competitive conflict management style with nine items, which is answered by leaders. Specifically, cooperative conflict management style included five items such as “My work so that to the extent possible we all get what we really want” and competitive conflict management style contained four items such as “I demand that others agree to my position.”

Team passion

This study adopted the scale designed by Vallerand et al. (2003b) . The scale had total seven items. For example, “This activity allows me to live a variety of experiences,” “This activity reflects the qualities I like about myself” and etc.

Positive team emotional climate

This study used three items of the positive team emotional climate scale derived from team emotional climate measure created by Liu et al. (2008) . Example items included “In our team, members are optimistic and confident” and “Working in my team, members feel hopeful.”

Team emotional intelligence

As mentioned above, since the dimension of OEA reflects the vital role of TEI in the context of conflict, which can help people to perceive, understand, and predict other emotions ( Ma and Liu, 2019 ). We adopted the items about OEA in the scale created by Wong and Law (2002) . Example items included “I am sensitive to the feelings and emotions of others” and “I have good understanding of the emotions of people around me.”

Control variables

In this paper, the gender, age, education level, and working years of participants, which may have potential impacts on CMS, team climate, and team passion are taken as control variables ( Rahim, 1983 ; Lewis, 2000 ; Beitler et al., 2018 ).

Data analysis and results

In this manuscript, SPSS 24.0 and AMOS24.0 ( Podsakoff et al., 2003 ) were used for descriptive statistical analysis, reliability analysis, and structural validity test. Mplus 8.0 was used both for the multiple regression analysis and hypotheses testing ( MacKinnon et al., 2002 ; Muthén and Muthén, 2012 ). We adopted bootstrapping method to enhance the statistical effectiveness ( Grant and Berry, 2011 ) by extracting 5,000 a * b values repeatedly from the raw data and confirm their unbiased interval.

Table 1 summarized the means, variances, correlation coefficients, and reliability test results for each major variable. According to Table 1 , the Cronbach alpha values of all variables is over 0.7, thus each scale has good reliability.

Descriptive statistical analysis and reliability.

Bold value is Cronbach’s alpha. N  = 101; ** p  < 0.01.

Structural validity

Confirmatory factor analysis was conducted in this study. We used Mplus8.0 to test the structural validity. Table 2 was the results.

Structural validity test of different source scales.

N  = 101, PTEC, positive team emotional climate; TEI, team emotional intelligence; TP, team passion; COO, cooperative conflict management style; and COM, competitive conflict management style.

At team-member level, the fitting degree of three-factor model is good (χ 2 /df = 2.36, GFI = 0.95, CFI = 0.98, NFI = 0.97, RMSEA = 0.06). And three-factor model is superior to single-factor model (combine PTEC, TEI, and TP) and two-factor models (combine PTEC, TEI, and TP in pairs). At team-leader level, the fitting degree of two-factor model is good (χ 2 / df  = 1.58, GFI = 0.90, CFI = 0.92, NFI = 0.86, RMSEA = 0.07), which is superior to single-factor model.

Data convergent testing at team level

In this paper, the consistency reliability ICC(1), ICC(2), and Rwg were calculated to test whether the data is able to converge at team level. According to the test, the ICC(1), ICC(2), and Rwg of team passion were 0.23, 0.47, and 0.893, separately. PTEC were 0.23, 0.48, and 0.893 separately. TEI were 0.28, 0.53, and 0.885 separately. Therefore, the above variables are able to converge at team level.

Hypotheses test

In this manuscript, variance inflation factor (VIF) was tested by Model 1 to prevent multicollinearity. All VIF values were less than 5, illustrating that there was no multicollinearity problems. Refer to Table 3 for details.

Hierarchical regression results.

N  = 101, *** p  < 0.001, * p  < 0.01. COO, cooperative conflict management style; COM, competitive conflict management style; PTEC, positive team emotional climate; TEI, team emotional intelligence; and TP, team passion.

Test of direct effects

As shown in Table 3 , control variables were gender, working years, age, education level of team leaders and average working years, age, and education level of team members, the regression results of different independent variables to dependent variables were obtained, respectively. In model 2, cooperative and competitive conflict management styles were independent variables and positive team emotional climate were dependent variables. We found that the cooperative CMS positively influence positive team emotional climate ( β 1  = 0.785, p  < 0.001), hypothesis 1a was supported; while competitive CMS had no significant influence on the positive team emotional climate ( β 2  = −0.082, p  > 0.05), which not supported hypothesis 1b. In model 3, cooperative and competitive conflict management styles were independent variables and team passion was dependent variable. We found that cooperative CMS positively affected team passion ( β 3  = 0.729, p  < 0.001), hypothesis 2a was supported; however competitive CMS had no significant influence on team passion ( β 4  = −0.001, p  > 0.05), hypothesis 2b was not supported. We took positive team emotional climate was independent variable and team passion as dependent variable in model 4. Model 4 had a path coefficient β 5 of 0.895 ( p  < 0.001), which illustrated that positive team emotional climate was significantly related to team passion, hypothesis 3 was initially validated. On the basis of above models, model 5 took positive team emotional climate as a mediating variable. Because the competitive style has no significant influence in models 2 and 3, it is unnecessary to keep on discussing the mediating impact of positive team emotional climate between competitive style and team passion and the moderating impact of team emotional intelligence between CMS and dependent variables. Consequently, model 5 did not contain competitive conflict management style. The path coefficient β 6 between CMS and team passion was 0.069 ( p  > 0.05) and coefficient β 7 was 0.842 ( p  < 0.001), which further supported hypothesis 3.

Test of indirect effects

Then, we used bootstrapping to exam indirect effects and confidence interval. According to the above, the path coefficients of independent variable-mediating variable ( β 1 ) and mediating variable-dependent variable ( β 7 ) were significant. Then repeated sampling 5,000 times, the mediating effect of positive team emotional climate was significant ( β = 0.258, p  < 0.001, 95% CI of β 1 * β 7 is [0.583, 0.813], excluding 0).

Finally, this manuscript investigated the moderating impact of TEI. Because positive team emotional climate completely mediated the relationship between cooperative CMS and team passion, it was not necessary to test its moderating role between them. Therefore, hypothesis 5 was not supported. The following analysis only examined its moderating effect between cooperative CMS and positive team emotional climate, and the results were shown in model 6. The path coefficients between interaction variable and positive team emotional climate was significant ( β 8  = −0.226, p  < 0.01), which was opposite to hypotheses 4. In this study, method of Aiken and West (1991) was used to further describe team emotional intelligence’s moderating effect. The results are shown as Figure 2 . According to Figure 2 , we can find that whether in higher emotional intelligence teams or in lower emotional intelligence teams, leader’s cooperative CMS positively impact positive team emotional climate ( β 9  = 0.671, p  < 0.001; β 10  = 0.921, p  < 0.001). In addition, with team emotional intelligence higher, the positive effect of cooperative CMS on positive team emotional climate was weaker.

Cooperative styles × TEI influence on positive team emotional climate.

Table 4 showed that cooperative CMS was beneficial to creating a positive team emotional climate and improving team passion. This is because the cooperative CMS requires both parties involved to solve the conflict through open, cooperative, peaceful, and friendly methods. It can not only help create a happy and harmonious team climate, but also mobilize the working motivation of teams. The results also verified the positive impact of positive team emotional climate on team passion. For indirect effects, it showed that positive team emotional climate completely mediated the relationship between cooperative CMS and team passion. Moreover, team emotional intelligence played a moderating effect between cooperative CMS and positive team emotional climate.

Hypotheses results.

CMS, conflict management styles; COO, cooperative conflict management style; COM, competitive conflict management style; PTEC, positive team emotional climate; TEI, team emotional intelligence; and TP, team passion.

Nevertheless, some hypotheses were not supported. First of all, the effects of competitive conflict management style on positive team emotional climate and team passion were not significant. This may be related to the fact that the survey data came from China. The power distance of Chinese society is large. Members who grew up under Chinese traditional education are used to obeying the orders of leaders, even though the current working environment encourages teamwork and reduces the power distance. China is a high power distance society ( Ma Z. et al., 2018 ), and employees accustomed to the commanding work style of leaders. Employees think that leaders have the right to dominant and order them and accept the competitive conflict management style of leaders when confront conflicts. Therefore, team leader’s competitive CMS may not negatively affect team passion and team positive emotional climate. In addition, Chinese culture emphasizes “harmony is precious.” When confronted with conflict, team members are more concerned about escaping from the conflict situation as soon as possible. At that time, even if leaders adopt a competitive conflict management style which members do not like, it is acceptable for team members in order to escape from the conflict environment. We assume that team members’ negative emotions brought by team leader’s competitive conflict management styles and their positive emotions brought by escaping from conflicts may cancel each other out. Therefore, it can be speculated that team leader’s competitive CMS will not affect team members’ emotions. Secondly, TEI plays a negatively moderating role between cooperative CMS and team positive emotional climate. It is likely that team members with high emotional intelligence can regulate and infect other members within the team. According to emotional contagion theory, individuals can influence others or groups through emotional transmission ( Barsade, 2002 ). Consequently, when the level of team emotional intelligence is high, even if team leaders adopt a highly cooperative CMS, positive team emotional climate does not necessarily increase a lot, but keeps a stable standard.

Conclusion and implications

With the perspective of emotion, this manuscript carries out the intrinsic mechanism of two typical conflict management styles on team passion and builds a corresponding theoretical model including the mediating impact of positive team emotional climate and the moderating influence of TEI. The model is tested empirically by investigating the paired data of 101 team leaders and 383 team members. We can find that cooperative CMS is conducive to creating a positive team emotional climate, which can effectively improve team passion. That is to say, positive team emotional climate plays the fully mediating effect between team leader’s cooperative CMS and team passion. Furthermore, TEI plays the moderating effect between leader’s cooperative CMS and positive team emotional climate.

Theoretical implications

First of all, this manuscript explores the impacts of conflict management styles on team outcomes based on affective events theory with emotional perspective. Previous researches on the results of conflict management are mostly based on cognitive perspective and the outcome variables are mainly individual and team performance ( Somech et al., 2009 ; Shih and Susanto, 2010 ; Tabassi et al., 2017 ). Some scholars take organizational identification ( Erkutlu and Chafra, 2015 ), team coordination ( Tabassi et al., 2018 ), and workplace bullying ( Einarsen et al., 2018 ) as outcome variables, but pay less attention to the impacts on team attitudes related to emotions. This manuscript probes the impacts of CMS on an important team attitude related to emotional called team passion from the emotional perspective which not only provides a new perspective for follow-up research but also expands the research scope of impacts of conflict management styles.

Secondly, this study uses cross-level research method to verify the relationships between team leader’s styles of managing conflict and team emotional outcomes. In the past, when examining the impacts of team leader’s behavior on team’s emotion, most studies focus on the influences of leadership behaviors, such as spiritual leadership ( Afsar et al., 2016 ), transformational leadership ( Arnold, 2017 ), empowering leadership ( Kim et al., 2018 ), and authentic leadership ( Agote et al., 2016 ), while few researches concentrate on that of leader’s conflict management styles. Because conflict is inevitable in the team, we can infer that team leader’s CMS as one of the most important manifestations of his/her behaviors should have important effects on team results. Based on this idea, this manuscript explores the relationship between team leader’s CMSs and team emotional outcomes, so as to enrich the literature on the antecedents of team outcomes.

Lastly, this manuscript investigates the intrinsic mechanism of team leader’s CMSs on team passion, confirms the mediating effect of positive team emotional climate between them, and the moderating influence of TEI between CMSs and positive team emotional climate. Previous studies have focused on mediating or moderating effects of cognitive variables, such as team effectiveness ( Cheng et al., 2012 ) and psychological safety ( Erkutlu and Chafra, 2015 ). Since emotions is critical to help individuals comprehend the internal mechanism of team attitudes and behaviors, this manuscript explores the underlying mechanism of team leader’s CMSs on team passion from the emotional perspective and investigates the mediating and moderating effects of emotional variables. This, in turn, broadens the study on the mechanisms of CMSs on team outcomes to a certain extent.

Managerial implications

There are three main managerial implications as well.

Firstly, team leader’s CMSs have a major effect on team climate and team attitude. When teams occur conflicts, team leaders should consider adopting cooperative conflict management style because it is conducive not only to good communication and information exchange within teams, but also to the creation of the positive emotional climate and inspiration of team passion, which helps find more effective solutions to conflicts, ease the relationship between two parties involved in conflict as soon as possible, reduce the loss caused by conflict, improve team performance and etc. Therefore, organizations should guide team leaders to emphasize and adopt cooperative conflict management style to cope with conflicts. Organizations can use case analysis, role-playing, mentor guidance, and other training methods to enhance team leaders’ skills of using cooperative conflict management style. In addition, organizations can also create a harmonious and cooperative working atmosphere that encourages leaders to adopt a cooperative conflict management style in the workplace, so as to improve team innovation performance.

Secondly, as employees’ emotions and working conditions are inseparable, employees’ emotional factors which cannot be ignored since they significantly affect the performance of enterprises or teams should be highly valued by managers. This paper proves that team emotional climate has a significant influence on team outcomes. In addition, leaders and managers should pay more attention to team passion which is the motivation for members to work hard. Therefore, team leaders should not only care about the management of team members’ personal emotions, but also emphasize the shaping of team emotional climate and the stimulation of team passion. On the one hand, it is suggested that team leaders create an open, relaxed, free and friendly atmosphere within the team through team building to arouse team passion. On the other hand, team leaders also can inspire team passion by setting clear and promising goals for team prospects.

Finally, researchers have already found the significance of emotional intelligence at work ( Alkahtani, 2015 ; Lee and Wong, 2017 ; Jamshed and Majeed, 2018 ; Mindeguia et al., 2021b ). The result of this study shows that TEI weakens the influence of cooperative conflict management style on positive team emotional climate. This shows that we do not want to promote the idea that members in teams with high emotional intelligence should be superior, because all members have emotion swings and even individuals with high emotional intelligence cannot avoid negative emotions ( Jordan et al., 2002 ). Moreover, too high TEI is likely to inhibit the promotion and dissemination of a team’s positive emotions since teams with emotional intelligence at a high level may have a strong ability to influence team members’ emotions. Therefore, team leaders should not blindly pursue too high team emotional intelligence, but keep it on a relatively moderate level, so as to play its biggest role.

Limitations and future research directions

Firstly, this manuscript investigates the intrinsic mechanism of team leader’s CMSs on team passion with the perspective of emotion and discovers the mediating effect of positive team emotional climate between them. Future researches can further probe the mediating effect of other emotional variables such as emotional control and affective tone ( Rank and Frese, 2008 ). Secondly, this manuscript only chooses team leader’s CMSs of cooperation and competition. of course, leaders can also adopt other conflict management styles. Thus, future studies can further probe the influence of other CMSs on team outcomes based on emotional perspective. Thirdly, this study just chooses OEA dimension to measure team emotional intelligence. Although it makes sense to some extent, it is relatively simple and not necessarily able to stand criticizing. Consequently, future studies can add other dimensions to measure team emotional intelligence. Fourthly, the data in this manuscript totally came from questionnaire and are measured by self-report lacking of data from multiple evaluation sources. Future researches will consider combining various survey methods to obtain sample data and expand the survey subjects to reduce the impact of homologous data. Finally, we adopt the cross-sectional design in this manuscript. We can collect more longitudinal data in the future.

Data availability statement

Author contributions.

JY contributed to the conceptual design of the study. JY, MQ and MJ contributed to the drafting of the article. GL and ML contributed to the data analyzes. All authors contributed to the article and approved the submitted version.

The research was supported by Beijing Knowledge Management Institute (5212210983) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 72002016).

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Publisher’s note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

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Negotiation and Conflict Management Research (NCMR) publishes articles that develop theory and report research on negotiation and conflict management across levels, including interpersonal conflict, intergroup conflict, organizational conflict, and cross-cultural conflict, across a range of domains including environmental conflict, crisis negotiations, and political conflict, as well as across a variety of approaches, including formal and informal third party intervention, mediation and arbitration.

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Article contents

Managing conflict for effective leadership and organizations.

• Dean Tjosvold , Dean Tjosvold Department of Management, Lingnan University
• Alfred S. H. Wong Alfred S. H. Wong Department of Management, Lingnan University
•  and  Nancy Yi Feng Chen Nancy Yi Feng Chen Department of Management, Lingnan University
• https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190224851.013.240
• Published online: 28 August 2019

Leaders and employees deal with conflict as they collaborate in the everyday life of organizations and as they confront crises. Depending how they manage conflict, they can frustrate employees and provoke customer complaints but also stimulate their relationships and decision-making. The possibilities of constructive conflict are significant and documented, but the challenges to making conflict constructive are significant too. The practice of defining conflict as a win-lose battle has obscured ways of managing conflict constructively. Fortunately, researchers have developed concepts and findings that can help managers and employees manage conflict. A first step is developing a useful, unconfounded definition of conflict. Deutsch proposed that conflict occurs when there are incompatible activities. Team members are in conflict as they argue for different options for a decision.

Deutsch also theorized that how people believe their goals are related very much affects their interaction, specifically their conflict management. They can conclude that their goals are cooperative (positively related), competitive (negatively related), or independent. People with cooperative goals believe that as one of them moves toward attaining goals, that helps others achieve their goals. In competition, people conclude that their goals are negatively related and only one can succeed in the interaction. In independence, one person ‘s success neither benefits nor harms the others’ success. Researchers have found that the nature of the cooperative or competitive relationship between protagonists has a profound impact on their mutual motivation to discuss conflicts constructively. Cooperative and competitive methods of handling conflict have consistent, powerful effects on constructive conflict. Team members with cooperative goals engage in open-minded discussions where they develop and express their opposing positions, including the ideas, reasons, and knowledge they use to support their positions. They also work to understand each other’s perspectives. They are then in a position to combine the best of each other’s ideas and create effective resolutions of conflict that they are both committed to implement. Teams that rely on cooperative, mutual benefit interaction ways of managing conflict and avoid competitive, win-lose ways been found to use conflict to promote high quality decisions, to stimulate learning, and to strengthen their work relationships. What has an impact on constructive conflict is not so much the occurrence, amount, or type of conflict but how leaders and employees approach and handle their conflicts, specifically, the extent to which their discussions are cooperative and open-minded.

• incompatible activities
• mutual benefit conflict
• win–lose conflict
• constructive conflict
• open-minded discussions

Conflict is pervasive and greatly affects leadership and teamwork, the very drivers of organizations (Blake & Mouton, 1964 ; Jehn, 1995 ; Johnson, 2015 ). Conflict is part of the everyday life of organizations in making decisions, handling customer complaints, and managing performance; conflict is also part of dealing with dramatic events such as acquisitions, strikes, and bankruptcies. Conflicts have both constructive and destructive sides. Conflicts can sabotage alliances and relationships, but effectively managed conflict vitalizes partnerships and invigorates interpersonal bonds. Conflict challenges leaders and teammates and engages them in the full range of experiences that organizations offer.

Research on how to manage conflict is critical to understanding relationships and organizations as well as how to make them effective. Leaders and employees must learn to live with conflict; they have to deal with and resolve the many conflicts that threaten to divide them and frustrate joint progress.

We often blame conflict for our frustrations and give it power over us. We think that if we only had less conflict, our lives would be happy and productive. The goal is to be conflict-free, or at least to keep our conflicts minor and forgettable. However, how we approach and handle conflict greatly affects whether it is constructive or destructive. It’s not so much having conflict or how much conflict we have that matters, but what is critical is how we manage our conflict that affects whether it is constructive or destructive.

Constructive conflict occurs when protagonists conclude that the benefits of their conflict management outweigh the costs; they believe that their investments made in handling conflict will pay off (Deutsch, 1973 ). The costs and wasteful investments of destructive conflict are typically well recognized. Angry feelings leave relationships fragmented and joint work stalled; both people and productivity suffer (Averill, 1983 ).

However, conflicts can have very constructive effects, so useful that we may hesitate to call them conflicts. Through discussing opposing ideas in conflict, protagonists can deepen their understanding of their own ideas as they defend their views (Tjosvold, Wong, & Chen, 2014a ). They can also listen to and understand the views of their protagonists; they put themselves in each other’s shoes. They open the possibility of combining the best ideas to create new solutions. In addition to enriching their learning, they can appreciate each other’s feelings, motives, and commitments, making their joint life more personal and richer.

The possibilities of constructive conflict are significant and documented, but the challenges to making conflict constructive are significant too. Managing conflict constructively may sound straightforward, and it can be. But making conflict constructive often tests us intellectually, emotionally, and interpersonally. Managing conflict constructively gives a lot, but it takes a lot.

This article has six sections. Conflict has been defined in confounded ways so that popular stereotypes have interfered with practice and research. The first section defines conflict as incompatible activities that may or may not have opposing goals. Arguing that what has an impact on constructive conflict is not the occurrence or amount of conflict but how we approach and handle conflict, the second section proposes that open-minded discussion and cooperative goals are key conditions to making conflict constructive. The third section reviews research on task and relationship conflict that suggests that these types of conflict can be managed. The fourth section reviews how constructive conflict can strengthen leadership and thereby very much contribute to the relationship between employees and managers. Then research on how conflict can be managed across cultural boundaries is discussed. The sixth and final part suggests how training can strengthen constructive conflict, leadership, and organizations.

Understanding Conflict

Researchers typically have not considered defining conflict critical for understanding it; indeed, they have tended to define conflict by including several notions (Barki & Hartwick, 2004 ; Rahim, 1992 ). However, popular definitions have tended to define conflict in terms of opposing goals and interests. This definition of conflict has greatly frustrated research progress in identifying the many ways conflict can constructively contribute to individual learning and organizational performance. Defining conflict as incompatible actions, we propose, is a much more solid foundation for research than defining conflict as opposing interests.

Conflict as Opposing Interests

Traditionally, conflict is defined in terms of opposing interests involving scarce resources and goal divergence and frustration (e.g., Pondy, 1967 ). Defining conflict as opposing interests is consistent with the prevalent assumption that conflict involves not only differences but is win–lose and reinforces the popular thinking that conflict is typically dealt with harshly and competitively. For many people, conflict is a win–lose battle over goals that they want to win, not lose.

However, defining conflict as opposing interests frustrates effective operations and measures. Conflict is confused with win–lose ways to manage it. For example, the Interpersonal Conflict at Work Scale measures conflict with such items as “people do nasty things to me at work” (Spector & Bruk-Lee, 2008 ). This item measures a competitive, win–lose way to manage conflict, not conflict itself.

The popular assumption that conflict is competitive and a fight over opposing interests underscores the difficulties of measuring conflict with items including the term “conflict” in them. For example, research scales that measure types of conflict, such as task and relationship conflict, typically include the term “conflict.” Including the word conflict is likely to contribute to the common finding that both relationship and task conflicts contribute to team ineffectiveness (De Dreu & Weingart, 2003 ; DeChurch, Mesmer-Magnus, & Doty, 2013 ; Tjosvold, Law, & Sun, 2006 ). Conceptual and operational definitions of conflict should help us appreciate both the constructive as well as the destructive sides of conflict and should avoid confounding conflict with popular confusions and stereotypes.

Conflict as Opposing Activities

Deutsch ( 1973 ) proposes that conflict occurs when there are incompatible activities (Tjosvold et al., 2014a ). Team members are in conflict when they argue for different options for a team decision as they perform actions that interfere with each other’s actions. They express their various reasons for the joint action their team should take. Different parties arguing for their different positions are incompatible actions that block each person from getting their option accepted; they are in conflict.

They may express their views to reflect that they have cooperative goals as well as conflicting activities. They argue for their favored option as they put forth their reasons for this option. They may defend their preferred position vigorously and conduct additional research to support their option. They want team members to consider their proposed option seriously. Their goal with protagonists is a cooperative one, however: they want to make the best decision for the team as a whole.

Alternatively, team members may have opposing goals when they argue for different options; they are in competition as well as in conflict. They argue that their option must be accepted and other options should be rejected. They express their arguments for their favored option in win–lose ways. Only one option can be accepted and it should be theirs.

Expressing one’s view can be done both cooperatively and competitively. Studies indicate that these different ways of expressing one’s options often have dramatic effects on the dynamics and outcomes of conflict (Tjosvold et al., 2014a ).

Approaches to Conflict

This article argues that research on how team members manage and deal with their conflicts very much contributes to understanding and developing constructive conflict. It is not so much the frequency, amount, and type of conflict as it is how team members discuss and work out their conflicts. Cooperative and competitive methods of handling conflict have been found to have consistent, powerful effects on constructive conflict.

Researchers recognize the value of a contingency perspective that holds that managers and employees should have alternative ways to deal with a conflict so that they can select the one most useful and appropriate in their situation (Rahim, 1992 ; Thomas, 1976 ). Pretending that there is no conflict and avoiding discussing conflict are useful in some situations, but generally conflict avoidance is not useful, indeed is often destructive (De Dreu & Van Vianen, 2001 ; Friedman, Chi, & Liu, 2006 ; Liu, Fu, & Liu, 2009 ; Lovelace, Shapiro, & Weingart, 2001 ; Ohbuchi & Atsumi, 2010 ). Without direct discussion and action, conflicts seldom disappear by themselves; they can fester and intensify, becoming more complex and destructive (Bacon & Blyton, 2007 ; Eisenhardt, Kahwajy, & Bourgeois, 1997 ; Nemeth & Owens, 1996 ).

This section argues that studies conducted using different theoretical frameworks together indicate that open-minded discussion between protagonists results in constructive outcomes in many situations (Johnson, 2015 ; Tjosvold et al., 2014a ). In open-minded discussions, protagonists develop and express their opposing positions, including the ideas, reasons, and knowledge they use to support their positions. They also work to understand each other’s perspectives. They are then in a position to combine the best of each other’s ideas and create effective resolutions of conflict that they are both committed to implement.

This section further proposes that cooperative relationships, but not competitive ones, are an effective foundation for open-minded discussion and constructive conflict. These relationships orient protagonists to identify and express their own ideas and proposals. They trust that others will try to understand their ideas and positions accurately (Hempel, Zhang, & Tjosvold, 2009 ). They feel they can rely upon each other to use these views to promote each other’s benefit. Their concerns that others will use their ideas and positions against them are minimized. They recognize that they can all gain from the conflict as each protagonist’s goals are promoted.

Open-Minded Discussion

Open-mindedness is the willingness to actively search for evidence against one’s favored beliefs and ideas and to weigh such evidence impartially and fully (Baker & Sinkula, 1999 ; Cegarra-Navarro & Sánchez-Polo, 2011 ; Mitchell, Nicholas, & Boyle, 2009 ; Sinkula, Baker, & Noordewier, 1997 ). Open-minded discussion occurs when people together seek to understand each other’s ideas and positions, consider each other’s reasoning for these positions impartially, and work to integrate their ideas into mutually acceptable solutions.

In open-minded discussion, protagonists express their own views directly to each other, listen and try to understand each other’s positions and arguments, and work to combine their ideas into new agreements acceptable to all. They are open with their own views, open to those of others, and open to new solutions to resolve the conflict. Evidence indicates that these aspects of openness are reinforcing and together constitute open-minded discussion (Johnson, 2015 ; Tjosvold, 1990a ; Tjosvold, Dann, & Wong, 1992 ; Tjosvold & Halco, 1992 ).

Survey items to measure open-mindedness give a specific understanding of open-mindedness (Chen, Liu, & Tjosvold, 2005 ; Wong, Tjosvold, & Yu, 2005 ). These items include: (a) express our own views directly to each other, (b) listen carefully to each other’s opinions, (c) try to understand each other’s concerns, and (d) work to use each other’s ideas. These items are typically strongly correlated with each other and the scale has high reliability.

Open-mindedness in conflict is inherently interpersonal as people act and react to each other. It takes two to have a conflict and it takes two to manage conflict. One protagonist can make bold, persistent, and skilled actions that encourage an otherwise closed-minded protagonist to discuss conflict open-mindedly. Generally, though, open-mindedness by all protagonists is needed to make conflict constructive. Evidence also suggests that protagonists develop similar levels of open-mindedness; one protagonist’s open-mindedness encourages others to be open (Tjosvold, 1990a ; Tjosvold et al., 1992 ; Tjosvold & Halco, 1992 ). Conflicts are more likely to be constructively managed when protagonists discuss their views directly and integrate them into solutions.

Researchers have used various terms to characterize the nature of discussion that results in constructive outcomes. These terms have their own historical roots, emphasize difference aspects of interaction, and provide various ways to measure and operationalize the interaction. These concepts and their operations help us understand the nature of open-minded discussion.

Open-Mindedness Research

Research conclusions are more fully understood and deserve more confidence when various researchers using different operations and samples develop consistent findings. Conflict researchers have used a variety of terms and operations to investigate open-mindedness. We propose that, although these terms are not identical, their differences should not obscure the considerable agreement among conflict researchers that open-minded discussion contributes to resolving conflicts in many situations. The operations of these terms further suggest the similarity of the concepts to open-minded discussion.

Integrative negotiation research provides indirect support that open-minded discussion is a foundation for developing constructive conflict. This research has examined the conditions that develop the creative process by which bargainers discover superior new options for both parties than those currently under consideration (Follett, 1940 ). Walton and McKersie ( 1965 ) propose that this integration is more likely when protagonists consider several issues simultaneously, consider the issues as problems to be solved, freely exchange accurate and credible information about their interests, avoid win–lose behaviors, and argue their own position unless and until they are convinced otherwise.

Experimental integrative negotiation researchers have argued similarly that problem solving interaction characterized by full information exchange results in mutually beneficial solutions (Pruitt & Carnevale, 1993 ; Pruitt, Carnevale, Ben-Yoav, Nochajski, & Van Slyck, 1983 ; Pruitt & Lewis, 1975 ). The operations to measure this problem solving interaction include asking for valid information, requesting information about the other’s interests, giving truthful information, showing interest in the other bargainer’s welfare, and proposing mutual concessions. Integrated negotiators challenge each other’s original ideas, dig into these positions to identify each other’s underlying interests, endure the uncertainty of not finding a quick solution, and are only satisfied with solutions that promote the interests of all.

De Dreu and colleagues have drawn upon integrative negotiation research to develop the motivated information processing approach (De Dreu, 2007 ; De Dreu, Koole, & Steinel, 2000 ; De Dreu, Nijstad, & van Knippenberg, 2008 ). This research also proposes and measures constructive interaction in conflict in terms of problem solving and information exchange. The extent to which protagonists engage in thorough, systematic processing of information was found to induce them to question perceptions that one protagonist can achieve their interests only to the extent that others cannot achieve their own; challenging this trade-off in turn results in more accurate assessments and more integrative agreements (De Dreu et al., 2000 ).

Conflict management styles researchers propose five alternative approaches to dealing with conflict (Rahim, 1983 , 1995 ; Thomas, 1976 ; Van de Vliert & Kabanoff, 1990 ). Although arguing that all five can be useful in some circumstances, these researchers have concluded that the collaborative conflict management style, at times supplemented with other styles, is constructive under a wide range of conditions (Van de Vliert, Euwema, & Huismans, 1995 ; Van de Vliert, Nauta, Giebels, & Janssen, 1999 ). Research on collaborative conflict management styles and experiments on negotiation support that being open with one’s own views as well as being open to other ideas and integrating them contribute to constructive conflict (Pruitt & Carnevale, 1993 ).

Diverse researchers have found that open-minded discussion contributes to resolving conflicts within and between organizations (Johnson, Johnson, & Tjosvold, 2006 ; Tjosvold, 1985 ). Conflict involves incompatible actions, specifically the intellectual aspects of proposing and reconciling opposing ideas that temporarily disrupt reaching a resolution. Fortunately, research by various scholars supports that open-minded discussion very much contributes to effective conflict management.

Cooperative Relationships for Open-Minded Discussion

When do protagonists discuss their conflicts open-mindedly? Researchers have theorized that the nature of the relationship between protagonists has a profound impact on their mutual motivation to discuss conflicts open-mindedly. Open-minded discussions occur when both participants are motivated to work together to manage their conflicts constructively.

Theory of Cooperation and Competition

Deutsch ( 1948 , 1973 ) theorized that how people believe their goals are related very much affects their interaction and thereby their outcomes. They can conclude that their goals are cooperative (positively related), competitive (negatively related), or independent. People with cooperative goals believe that as one of them moves toward attaining goals, that helps others achieve their goals. In competition, people conclude that their goals are negatively related and only one can succeed in the interaction. In independence, one person’s success neither benefits nor harms the others’ success.

Deutsch ( 1973 ) further proposed that cooperative goals are a useful way to understand when protagonists are able to manage their conflicts constructively. Both survey and experimental studies confirm that with cooperative goals, managers and employees discuss their differences directly and open-mindedly (Alper, Tjosvold, & Law, 1998 ; Poon, Pike, & Tjosvold, 2001 ; Schei & Rognes, 2003 ; Tjosvold, 1988 ). Teams are considered cooperative to the extent that members rate that their goals go together (Alper et al., 1998 ); they are considered competitive to the extent that members rate that they favored their own goals over the goals of others (Alper et al., 1998 ); teams are considered independent to the extent that members rate that one member’s success is unrelated to the success of their teammates (Alper et al., 1998 ). Competitive and independent goals have been found to lead to conflict avoidance or to conflict escalation or both (Alper, Tjosvold, & Law, 2000 ; Tjosvold et al., 2001 ). Protagonists with cooperative goals promote each other’s benefit because doing so is to their own advantage.

Protagonists typically have mixed interdependencies as well as more “pure” cases. Galinsky and Schweitzer ( 2015 ) note that social relationships contain both competitive and cooperative aspects. This co-opetition has been thought to leave protagonists more flexibility in how they manage conflict (Landkammer & Sassenberg, 2016 ).

Antecedents to Open-Mindedness

A key dynamic of having positively related goals of cooperation is that by helping others reach their goals, one also reaches one’s own goals. In cooperation, people promote their own goals and others’ goals simultaneously. Researchers have used other theoretical frameworks to capture this idea of positively related goals where self-interests are mutual in that promoting one’s self-interest promotes the self-interest of the others. Researchers have used the dual concerns and pro-social motivation to capture positively related self-interests.

In dual concerns, theorists have proposed that conflict participants can be committed to promoting others’ interests as well as their own (Thomas, 1976 , 1992 ). Rahim and Bonoma ( 1979 ) and Rahim ( 1983 , 1992 ) built upon Blake and Mouton’s ( 1964 ) managerial grid. Concern for self describes the extent to which people attempt to satisfy their own interests. The second dimension describes the extent to which people want to satisfy the concerns of others (Rahim & Bonoma, 1979 ). High concern for self and high concern for others resemble cooperative goals. Dual concerns occur when protagonists are motivated by their own interests and outcomes: they are willing to assert themselves to get what they want and they are also motivated to promote their partners’ interests and outcomes.

Dean Pruitt and other integrative negotiation researchers have also developed the dual concerns model (Pruitt & Carnevale, 1993 ; Pruitt et al., 1983 ; Pruitt & Rubin, 1986 ). Here protagonists committed to the interests of the other as well as themselves discuss conflict open-mindedly where they are only satisfied with solutions that promote the interests of both.

Motivational and social value orientation theory (Kelley & Schenitzki, 1972 ; McClintock, 1977 ; Messick & McClintock, 1968 ; Van Lange & Kuhlman, 1994 ) also found that preference for both self and other promotes constructive conflict (De Dreu & Van Lange, 1995 ; De Dreu, Weingart, & Kwon, 2000 ). Social motives refer to preferences for outcomes to the self and other: pro-social, pro-self, and competitive negotiators differ in attaching a positive, zero, or negative weight to the other’s outcomes, respectively (De Dreu & Boles, 1998 ; De Dreu & McCusker, 1997 ; Van Lange, 1999 ).

Pro-social protagonists choose options that maximize joint outcomes; protagonists are pro-self if they select options where their own outcomes are higher than the other, and they are classified as competitive if they choose options that maximize the differences between the two, that is, their own outcomes are much better than the other’s outcomes. Pro-social motivation has been found to develop the open-minded exchange of information that results in constructive conflict (De Dreu, Weingart, et al., 2000 ; Nauta, De Dreu, & Van der Vaart, 2002 ).

Researchers have developed the dual concerns model, pro-social and pro-self social motivation, and cooperative goals as theoretical perspectives to understand relationships that promote constructive conflict (De Dreu, Weingart, et al., 2000 ; Deutsch, 1973 ; Pruitt & Rubin, 1986 ; Rahim & Bonoma, 1979 ). This section argues that these different terms obscure fundamental agreement that the commitment to promoting each other’s goals facilitates open-minded discussion.

Managers and employees of course do not always discuss their differences open-mindedly and, according to the contingency perspective, under certain conditions it would be inappropriate and dysfunctional to do so. Commitments to competitive and independent goals are apt to lead to closed-minded discussions with an emphasis on promoting one’s own interests without concern for the ideas and aspirations of the other. Indeed, with competitive goals they are apt to actively frustrate each other’s goals as they understand this is a way of promoting their own.

This article refers to cooperative relationships as underlying open-minded discussion. Previous research has directly tested whether cooperative relationships promote open-mindedness, providing both experimental and survey data (Deutsch, 1973 ). Research has demonstrated both the causal relationship that cooperative goals promote open-mindedness and survey evidence that supports that cooperative relationships support open-minded discussion in a wide variety of organizational situations (Tjosvold et al., 2014a ). In addition, many social psychologists and other social scientists have developed our understanding of cooperation and competition (Deutsch, 1973 ; Deutsch, Coleman, & Marcus, 2011 ).

Conflict Type Research

For more than two decades, organizational researchers have distinguished types of conflict and argued that the type of conflict determines how constructive the conflict is (Jehn, 1997 ; Jehn, Greer, Levine, & Szulanski, 2008 ). Whether the conflict is about getting tasks done or about the quality of relationships between protagonists, conflict type is thought to determine whether conflict is constructive or destructive. Theorizing on the role of conflict types has stimulated considerable research by many investigators.

Research findings on conflict types supports the traditional view that high levels of conflict disrupt teamwork, and refines this idea by indicating that this proposition is especially true when these conflicts are relationship-based. Relationship conflicts, as measured by such items as how much friction, tension, and personality conflict are in the team, have been found to make conflict destructive (Jehn, 1994 ; Jehn et al., 2008 ). Reviews of literature, including several meta-analyses, have consistently found that relationship conflicts correlate with low levels of team productivity (Choi & Sy, 2010 ; De Dreu & Weingart, 2003 ; DeChurch et al., 2013 ).

These results have straightforward practical implications for leaders and team members in reducing relationship conflict. Given the heavy reliance on correlational findings, it can be more cautiously concluded that relationship conflicts are signs of destructive conflict and are unlikely to contribute to constructive conflict. Researchers have, however, sought to identify boundary conditions that minimize the negative impact, and unlock the positive impact, of relationship conflict (Thiel, Harvey, Courtright, & Bradley, 2017 ).

Whereas relationship conflicts disrupt, it has been proposed that conflicts over tasks contribute to group performance (Jehn, 1997 ; Jehn et al., 2008 ). However, findings do not consistently support this theorizing that task conflict strengthens group performance (Choi & Sy, 2010 ; De Dreu & Weingart, 2003 ; DeChurch et al., 2013 ). The inconsistent effects of task conflict indicate that expressing diverse views can be useful but not consistently. It appears that expressing opposing views must be done skillfully to contribute to constructive conflict, but task conflict theory does not directly suggest the conditions under which expressing opposing views contributes to constructive conflict.

Managing Task and Relationship Conflict

Researchers have worked to document the conditions that determine whether task and relationship conflict are constructive or destructive. For example, some evidence suggests that task conflict is apt to be more productive when it is in moderate amounts, is not closely related to relationship conflict, and when the outcomes are financial performance and decision quality rather than overall performance (De Dreu, 2006 ; de Wit, Greer, & Jehn, 2012 ; Farh, Lee, & Farh, 2010 ; Mooney, Holahan, & Amason, 2007 ; Shaw et al., 2011 ).

Several studies show that relationship conflict can hinder teams from capitalizing on the potential positive value of task conflict (de Jong, Song, & Song, 2013 ; de Wit, Jehn, & Scheepers, 2013 ; Shaw et al., 2011 ). Research has found that relationship conflicts encourage a competitive approach to managing conflict by leading people to make forceful demands, overstate their position to get their way, and in other ways treat conflict as a win–lose contest (Tjosvold et al., 2006 ). In contrast, to the extent that protagonists had few relationship conflicts, they resolved their conflicts in ways that supported mutual benefit; specifically, they encouraged a “we are in it together” attitude, sought a solution useful for all members, combined their best ideas, and treated conflict as a mutual problem to solve (de Jong et al., 2013 ; de Wit et al., 2013 ; Shaw et al., 2011 ).

Research suggests that how task and relationship conflicts are discussed, not just the amount of them, affects their constructiveness (DeChurch et al., 2013 ; Maltarich, Kukenberger, Reilly, & Mathieu, 2018 ; Rispens, Greer, Jehn, & Thatcher, 2011 ; Tekleab, Quigley, & Tesluk, 2009 ; Todorova, Bear, & Weingart, 2014 ). Recent studies have found that task conflict can be constructive when discussed open-mindedly and skillfully (Bradley, Klotz, Postlethwaite, & Brown, 2013 ; Chun & Choi, 2014 ; Humphrey, Aime, Cushenbery, Hill, & Fairchild, 2017 ; Jiang, Zhang, & Tjosvold, 2012 ; Tekleab et al., 2009 ). Teams with members with high levels of openness as a personality characteristic were found to have constructive task conflict (Bradley et al., 2013 ; de Jong et al., 2013 ). Overall, evidence indicates that open-minded discussion contributes to making both relationship and task conflict constructive (Gibson & Callister, 2010 ; Lau & Cobb, 2010 ; Tjosvold, 2002 ; Tjosvold & Su, 2007 ; Weingart, Behfar, Bendersky, Todorova, & Jehn, 2015 ).

Conflict Management for Leadership

Leadership has long been considered a key contributor to effective organizations. Much of the power of organizations is that they motivate and coordinate the work of many people; for that to happen, managers must lead employees. Without leadership, employees may fail to face up to difficulties, allow problems to simmer, and just go through the motions. Research indicates that to have effective leadership, managers and employees must make conflict constructive (Chen et al., 2005 ; Chen & Tjosvold, 2007 , 2013 ; Chen, Tjosvold, Huang, & Xu, 2011 ; Hui, Wong, & Tjosvold, 2007 ).

Conflict management research is updating our understanding of what it takes to be an effective leader and how to develop it. Studies indicate that by developing constructive conflict, managers can improve the quality of their leader relationships with employees. Managers can then orient and train employees so that they discuss their various ideas and improve the quality of their decision-making and their overall teamwork. Researchers have demonstrated that leaders can be effective by adopting various leadership styles; recent studies show that constructive conflict is very much needed to make these leadership styles effective.

Conflict for Quality Leadership Relationships

Leadership has long been thought to be “situational” in that the actions effective leaders take depend upon the situation; they monitor the situations and decide upon effective actions in the situation (Stogdill, 1974 ). In addition, though, researchers have found that successful leaders are consistent across many situations in that they develop quality relationships. Considerable research has found that successful leaders have quality relationships (Graen & Uhl-Bien, 1995 ). It’s not so much that managers have the “right” personal skills and characteristics but that they have high quality relationships with employees that help them influence employees and increase their productivity. With these relationships, leaders are able to engage employees, strengthen their teamwork, and in other ways convince them to contribute effectively to the organization.

Less recognized is that leaders and employees cannot allow frustrations to brew; they need to manage their conflicts to develop quality relationships (Chen & Tjosvold, 2007 ; Chen, Tjosvold, & Su, 2005 ; Tjosvold, Poon, & Yu, 2005 ). An important reason why quality relationships are useful is because they promote constructive conflict that in turn results in employee involvement and performance (Chen & Tjosvold, 2013 ; Tjosvold, Hui, & Law, 1998 ). Otherwise, relationship conflicts are apt to undermine team productivity as they allow frustrations to fester (Chen et al., 2005 ; Chen & Tjosvold, 2007 ; Tjosvold et al., 2005 ). Leaders need to manage their conflicts to reduce relationship conflicts and develop and maintain quality relationships.

Conflict for Making Decisions

Leaders have traditionally been thought to make tough decisions and then use their power to implement them. But this is a misleading notion. Studies by diverse researchers have documented the contribution of conflict to making decisions (Amason, 1996 ; Anderson, 1983 ; Cosier, 1978 ; George, 1974 ; Gruenfeld, 1995 ; Mason & Mitroff, 1981 ; Mitchell et al., 2009 ; Peterson & Nemeth, 1996 ; Salas, Rosen, & DiazGranados, 2010 ; Schweiger, Sandberg, & Ragan, 1986 ; Somech, Desivilya, & Lidgoster, 2009 ; Tetlock, Armor, & Peterson, 1994 ; Tjosvold, Wedley, & Field, 1986 ; Wong, Ormiston, & Tetlock, 2011 ). Through conflict, conventional thinking is challenged, threats and opportunities identified, and new solutions forged. Discussing opposing views has been found to give teams the confidence to take calculated risks where they also are prepared to recover from their mistakes; with this preparation, they innovate (Tjosvold & Yu, 2007 ). Even in a crisis, leaders are typically more effective when they seek out diverse views (Tjosvold, 1984 , 1990b ). Rather than making tough decisions alone, effective leaders are oriented toward promoting the conditions and relationships for open-minded discussion of opposing views among colleagues and employees. They develop constructive conflict that helps employees make and implement decisions as a team.

Conflict to Implement Leadership Styles

Researchers have argued that managers can be effective by adopting leadership styles such as transformational, servant, and productivity and people values (Eisenbeiss, van Knippenberg, & Boerner, 2008 ; Xu & Thomas, 2011 ). Less appreciated is that these styles are effective by promoting constructive conflict. Recent studies have demonstrated that to be successful in applying these styles, leaders develop constructive conflict.

Transformational leaders are expected to stimulate superior performance by appealing to employees’ higher aspirations (Bass, 2006 ). For example, they were found highly motivated not by unilaterally directing employees but by helping them manage their conflicts cooperatively and constructively (Zhang, Cao, & Tjosvold, 2011 ). This constructive conflict in turn resulted in high team performance in a sample of independent business groups. In a related study, government officials who exercised transformational leadership promoted cooperative conflict management that in turn resulted in strong government–business partnerships (Wong, Wei, & Tjosvold, 2014 ).

Leaders who value people and productivity have long been thought to be effective leaders, but the dynamics by which these values have beneficial effects have only recently been documented. In a study of international joint ventures (Wong, Wei, Yang, & Tjosvold, 2017 ), results support the idea that productivity and participation values strengthen the partners’ beliefs that their goals are cooperatively related, which in turn reduces free riding and promotes performance; in contrast, competitive goals appear to promote free riding and obstruct joint performance. The results have practical implications by showing that developing cooperative goals can strengthen the benefits of productivity and participation values.

Working in diverse organizations in India, team leaders indicated their people and productivity values and team members rated their open-minded discussion and their effectiveness and performance (Bhatnagar & Tjosvold, 2012 ). Structural equation analysis suggested that productivity values promoted open-minded discussion and thereby team effectiveness and productivity. Productivity-oriented team leaders challenge their teams to make high quality decisions and induce them to discuss issues open-mindedly, which in turn helps teams be effective (Bhatnagar & Tjosvold, 2012 ).

Servant leaders, as they emphasize service to others, team consensus, and the personal development of individuals, have been thought to lay the groundwork for cooperative conflict management in customer service teams (Wong, Liu, & Tjosvold, 2015 ). This constructive conflict helps team members resolve issues and in other ways effectively coordinate with each other; this coordination in turn helps these teams serve their customers. Findings indicate that to the extent that they have servant leaders, teams are able to discuss their disagreements, frustrations, and difficulties directly and work out solutions for the benefit of the team and its customers. These results provide support that improving the capacity to discuss opposing views open-mindedly can be a useful means for servant leaders to enhance teamwork and customer service in China and perhaps in other countries as well.

Ethical leaders want to act justly themselves but they also want employees to be committed to ethical principles and to act morally (Eisenbeiss, 2012 ; Mayer, Aquino, Greenbaum, & Kuenzi, 2012 ). A recent study indicates that effective ethical leaders and their employees engage in open-minded, cooperative conflict management where they express their ideas, work to understand each other, integrate their ideas, and apply their resolutions. Through this constructive conflict management, they work out arrangements that help them act effectively and morally in their situation as they also develop trusting, high quality relationships with each other. Ethical leaders and their employees were found to avoid competitive conflict involving trying to impose one’s own ideas and resolutions on others. Results also confirm that effective leaders develop high quality relationships that help them influence employees as well as to be open and influenced by them (Graen & Uhl-Bien, 1995 ).

Researchers have identified a number of styles that have been shown to help leaders be effective. Although they are developed from diverse leadership theories, studies have found that constructive conflict, in particular cooperative open-minded discussion, is an important mediator of successful implementation of these leadership styles, whether they be transformational leadership, valuing people and productivity, servant, or ethical leadership. Managers can use different leadership styles to encourage constructive conflict that empowers them to lead effectively.

Cultural Differences

Theories of conflict management that can be applied in diverse cultures are increasingly relevant. In the global marketplace, many managers and employees must handle conflicts that cross cultural boundaries. Team members increasingly have diverse cultural backgrounds, even when all operations are in one country. Many managers have to work with suppliers and customers who are from other cultures and live in other countries. Research has shown that open-mindedness and cooperative relationships develop constructive conflict in organizations even when protagonists are from both Western and Eastern cultures (Chen, Tjosvold, & Pan, 2010 ; Tjosvold, Wu, & Chen, 2010 ; Tjosvold, Wong, & Chen, 2014a ).

Research on conflict management has developed our understanding of the impact of cultural values, in particular collectivism and individualism. Western cultures have traditionally been thought to support open discussion of conflict consistent with their emphasis on individuals with their rights and proclivity to express their views. Eastern cultures have been considered collectivist where there is deference to their groups and leaders. Some studies support this traditional thinking. People from the West have indicated more preference for open handling of conflict, whereas those from the East prefer reticence (Kirkbride, Tang, & Westwood, 1991 ).

However, research suggests that this reasoning needs updating. Recent studies indicate that collectivist values induce open-minded discussion whereas individualistic values promote conflict avoidance. Collectivist values have been found in experiments to strengthen cooperative relationships that in turn promote open-minded discussion between individuals from collectivist and individualistic cultures (Chen et al., 2010 ; Tjosvold, Wu, et al., 2010 ; Tjosvold, Wong, & Chen, 2014a ). Collectivist culture team members were found to believe their goals are cooperative and that they are expected to work effectively with each other, and they sought to and actually understood opposing arguments and combined ideas for integrated decisions.

Studies confirm that cooperative and competitive approaches to managing conflict, although developed from theory in the West, apply to organizations in collectivist China as well (Chen et al., 2011 ). Indeed, findings challenge stereotypes that Chinese culture and leadership are highly conflict-negative. Chinese people are not rigidly committed to conflict avoidance but have been found to manage conflict cooperatively and openly. Chinese collectivism, social face, and other values can be applied in ways that aid direct, open, cooperative conflict management (Tjosvold, Wong, & Chen, 2014b ).

Cooperative conflict management can also guide the strengthening of cross-cultural interaction. Bond ( 2003 ) and Smith ( 2003 ) argue that cross-cultural researchers, in addition to the tradition of documenting cultural value differences, should study the relationship and interaction between culturally diverse people to identify how they work together effectively. Recent studies show that diverse people can work together when they manage their conflicts cooperatively (Chen et al., 2010 ; Chen & Tjosvold, 2007 , 2008 ; Chen, Tjosvold, & Wu, 2008 ).

While the “genotype” (the underlying conceptual structure of the theory of cooperation and competition) appears to be similar, the “phenotypes” (how the theory is manifested in particular situations) often are not (Lewin, 1938 ). In particular, the actions that develop cooperative goals and communicate an attempt to discuss conflicts open-mindedly may be quite different in China than in North America, as may the general levels of cooperative goals and conflict. However, diverse people can use research to develop a common understanding and platform for how they can manage conflict cooperatively and productively (Tjosvold & Leung, 2003 ).

Training Teams

Employees, managers, and executives are more effective when they manage important conflicts open-mindedly and cooperatively. Research suggests that, when they study cooperative, open-minded conflict, plan how to approach their own conflicts, and reflect on their experiences, managers and employees are more effective at managing conflict and more productive (Lu, Tjosvold, & Shi, 2010 ; Tjosvold et al., 2014a ).

A software company in Beijing used a cooperative team workshop and two months of follow-up of team feedback and reflection to develop open-minded conflict management (Lu et al., 2010 ). More than 150 employees from all the teams in the company participated in the workshop and the follow-up activities.

They had already organized cooperative teams to work on projects and satisfy customers. At the workshop, these groups studied the theory and reviewed the research in order to appreciate the value for them and their organization of strengthening cooperative, open-minded approaches to managing their conflicts. They decided that they wanted to improve their conflict management. They met regularly to assess their current level of cooperative conflict and developed plans for managing their conflicts more constructively. They practiced in their teams, met regularly to assess their current level of cooperative conflict, and developed plans for managing their conflicts more constructively. They reflected on their experience managing conflict within and between teams with consultants, and developed concrete ways to improve their conflict management.

Findings confirmed that open-minded discussion and cooperative relationships are a valuable basis upon which teams can strengthen their conflict management, collaboration among teams, and contributions to their organization. The training was found to heighten cooperative goals, develop open-minded discussion of conflicts, foster creativity within and between cultures, and produce higher group confidence and productivity.

Human resource personnel can apply conflict management findings by initiating professional development teams for managers and employees (Tjosvold & Tjosvold, 2015 ). They realize that becoming more effective requires the encouragement, feedback, and support of others. In these teams, managers and employees study cooperative, open-minded conflict management, reflect on their current experiences, and develop concrete ways to strengthen and practice conflict management skills. They remember not to expect perfection but to focus on reflecting on their experiences to improve.

Managers and employees confront a great variety of conflicts. With persistent pressures for them to rely on each other’s resources and to work together as a team, they are likely to encounter increasingly difficult conflicts that spread across organizational and national boundaries. Yet they are expected to resolve them quickly. Theory and research such as that referred to in this article helps to focus our efforts to manage even our complex conflicts constructively. We have learned from research that we can profitably strengthen our cooperative relationships and discuss our conflicts open-mindedly. Our conflicts will not disappear, but we can engage our partners so that we manage our conflicts and work together to get things done.

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Please note you do not have access to teaching notes, ten years of conflict management research 2007-2017: an update on themes, concepts and relationships.

International Journal of Conflict Management

ISSN : 1044-4068

Article publication date: 12 October 2018

Issue publication date: 8 February 2019

The purpose of this study is to map the intellectual structure of conflict management studies by investigating the key themes, concepts and their relationships for the period 2007-2017. The study updates the previous decade (1997-2006) investigation by Ma et al. (2008) to reflect the increased publication efforts in the field.

Design/methodology/approach

Bibliometric analysis was used to trace the development path of the extant literature. The study included activity indicators such as distribution of articles and most-cited journals; relationship indicators such as co-author analysis and keyword analysis; and the mapping of the theoretical foundations.

The analysis identified five key themes that help track the direction of conflict management research: negotiation, mediation, trust, conflict management styles and performance.

Originality/value

These themes show a wider diversification of topics in the field than in the past, corroborating previous results about the reputation and maturity of conflict management as an independent scientific field of research. This study will help scholars to improve their understanding of the evolution of conflict management studies and the direction that conflict management research is taking, in particular, identifying available avenues for future research.

• Conflict management
• Performance
• Bibliometric analysis
• Conflict management styles

Caputo, A. , Marzi, G. , Maley, J. and Silic, M. (2019), "Ten years of conflict management research 2007-2017: An update on themes, concepts and relationships", International Journal of Conflict Management , Vol. 30 No. 1, pp. 87-110. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJCMA-06-2018-0078

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5 Strategies for Conflict Resolution in the Workplace

• 07 Sep 2023

Any scenario in which you live, work, and collaborate with others is susceptible to conflict. Because workplaces are made up of employees with different backgrounds, personalities, opinions, and daily lives, discord is bound to occur. To navigate it, it’s crucial to understand why it arises and your options for resolving it.

Common reasons for workplace conflict include:

• Misunderstandings or poor communication skills
• Differing opinions, viewpoints, or personalities
• Biases or stereotypes
• Variations in learning or processing styles
• Perceptions of unfairness

Although conflict is common, many don’t feel comfortable handling it—especially with colleagues. As a business leader, you’ll likely clash with other managers and need to help your team work through disputes.

Here’s why conflict resolution is important and five strategies for approaching it.

Access your free e-book today.

Why Is Addressing Workplace Conflict Important?

Pretending conflict doesn’t exist doesn’t make it go away. Ignoring issues can lead to missed deadlines, festering resentment, and unsuccessful initiatives.

Yet, according to coaching and training firm Bravely , 53 percent of employees handle “toxic” situations by avoiding them. Worse still, averting a difficult conversation can cost an organization $7,500 and more than seven workdays.

That adds up quickly: American businesses lose $359 billion yearly due to the impact of unresolved conflict.

As a leader, you have a responsibility to foster healthy conflict resolution and create a safe, productive work environment for employees.

“Some rights, such as the right to safe working conditions or the right against sexual harassment, are fundamental to the employment relationship,” says Harvard Business School Professor Nien-hê Hsieh in the course Leadership, Ethics, and Corporate Accountability . “These rights are things that employees should be entitled to no matter what. They’re often written into the law, but even when they aren’t, they’re central to the ethical treatment of others, which involves respecting the inherent dignity and intrinsic worth of each individual.”

Effectively resolving disputes as they arise benefits your employees’ well-being and your company’s financial health. The first step is learning about five conflict resolution strategies at your disposal.

Related: How to Navigate Difficult Conversations with Employees

While there are several approaches to conflict, some can be more effective than others. The Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Model —developed by Dr. Kenneth W. Thomas and Dr. Ralph H. Kilmann—outlines five strategies for conflict resolution:

• Accommodating
• Compromising
• Collaborating

These fall on a graph, with assertiveness on the y-axis and cooperativeness on the x-axis. In the Thomas-Kilmann model, “assertiveness” refers to the extent to which you try to reach your own goal, and “cooperativeness” is the extent to which you try to satisfy the other party’s goal.

Alternatively, you can think of these axis labels as the “importance of my goal” and the “importance of this relationship.” If your assertiveness is high, you aim to achieve your own goal. If your cooperativeness is high, you strive to help the other person reach theirs to maintain the relationship.

Here’s a breakdown of the five strategies and when to use each.

1. Avoiding

Avoiding is a strategy best suited for situations in which the relationship’s importance and goal are both low.

While you’re unlikely to encounter these scenarios at work, they may occur in daily life. For instance, imagine you’re on a public bus and the passenger next to you is loudly playing music. You’ll likely never bump into that person again, and your goal of a pleasant bus ride isn’t extremely pressing. Avoiding conflict by ignoring the music is a valid option.

In workplace conflicts—where your goals are typically important and you care about maintaining a lasting relationship with colleagues—avoidance can be detrimental.

Remember: Some situations require avoiding conflict, but you’re unlikely to encounter them in the workplace.

2. Competing

Competing is another strategy that, while not often suited for workplace conflict, can be useful in some situations.

This conflict style is for scenarios in which you place high importance on your goal and low importance on your relationships with others. It’s high in assertiveness and low in cooperation.

You may choose a competing style in a crisis. For instance, if someone is unconscious and people are arguing about what to do, asserting yourself and taking charge can help the person get medical attention quicker.

You can also use it when standing up for yourself and in instances where you feel unsafe. In those cases, asserting yourself and reaching safety is more critical than your relationships with others.

When using a competing style in situations where your relationships do matter (for instance, with a colleague), you risk impeding trust—along with collaboration, creativity, and productivity.

3. Accommodating

The third conflict resolution strategy is accommodation, in which you acquiesce to the other party’s needs. Use accommodating in instances where the relationship matters more than your goal.

For example, if you pitch an idea for a future project in a meeting, and one of your colleagues says they believe it will have a negative impact, you could resolve the conflict by rescinding your original thought.

This is useful if the other person is angry or hostile or you don’t have a strong opinion on the matter. It immediately deescalates conflict by removing your goal from the equation.

While accommodation has its place within organizational settings, question whether you use it to avoid conflict. If someone disagrees with you, simply acquiescing can snuff out opportunities for innovation and creative problem-solving .

As a leader, notice whether your employees frequently fall back on accommodation. If the setting is safe, encouraging healthy debate can lead to greater collaboration.

Related: How to Create a Culture of Ethics and Accountability in the Workplace

4. Compromising

Compromising is a conflict resolution strategy in which you and the other party willingly forfeit some of your needs to reach an agreement. It’s known as a “lose-lose” strategy, since neither of you achieve your full goal.

This strategy works well when your care for your goal and the relationship are both moderate. You value the relationship, but not so much that you abandon your goal, like in accommodation.

For example, maybe you and a peer express interest in leading an upcoming project. You could compromise by co-leading it or deciding one of you leads this one and the other the next one.

Compromising requires big-picture thinking and swallowing your pride, knowing you won’t get all your needs fulfilled. The benefits are that you and the other party value your relationship and make sacrifices to reach a mutually beneficial resolution.

5. Collaborating

Where compromise is a lose-lose strategy, collaboration is a win-win. In instances of collaboration, your goal and the relationship are equally important, motivating both you and the other party to work together to find an outcome that meets all needs.

An example of a situation where collaboration is necessary is if one of your employees isn’t performing well in their role—to the point that they’re negatively impacting the business. While maintaining a strong, positive relationship is important, so is finding a solution to their poor performance. Framing the conflict as a collaboration can open doors to help each other discover its cause and what you can do to improve performance and the business’s health.

Collaboration is ideal for most workplace conflicts. Goals are important, but so is maintaining positive relationships with co-workers. Promote collaboration whenever possible to find creative solutions to problems . If you can’t generate a win-win idea, you can always fall back on compromise.

Considering Your Responsibilities as a Leader

As a leader, not only must you address your own conflicts but help your employees work through theirs. When doing so, remember your responsibilities to your employees—whether ethical, legal, or economic.

Leadership, Ethics, and Corporate Accountability groups your ethical responsibilities to employees into five categories:

• Well-being: What’s ultimately good for the person
• Rights: Entitlement to receive certain treatment
• Duties: A moral obligation to behave in a specific way
• Best practices: Aspirational standards not required by law or cultural norms
• Fairness: Impartial and just treatment

In the course, Hsieh outlines three types of fairness you can use when helping employees solve conflicts:

• Legitimate expectations: Employees reasonably expect certain practices or behaviors to continue based on experiences with the organization and explicit promises.
• Procedural fairness: Managers must resolve issues impartially and consistently.
• Distributive fairness: Your company equitably allocates opportunities, benefits, and burdens.

Particularly with procedural fairness, ensure you don’t take sides when mediating conflict. Treat both parties equally, allowing them time to speak and share their perspectives. Guide your team toward collaboration or compromise, and work toward a solution that achieves the goal while maintaining—and even strengthening—relationships.

Are you interested in learning how to navigate difficult decisions as a leader? Explore Leadership, Ethics, and Corporate Accountability —one of our online leadership and management courses —and download our free guide to becoming a more effective leader.

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Conflict of Interest & Conflict of Commitment

Stanford University is an institution of public trust. Stanford Personnel (Faculty, Staff, and Postdoctoral scholars) must conduct their affairs in ways that will not compromise the integrity of the University or that trust.

Stanford Research Policy Handbook 4.1

The Conflict of Interest & Commitment Office of VPDoR helps the Stanford research community navigate policies around potential conflict risks, understand the impact of divergent interests, and work with stakeholders to meet the requirements of disclosure and management. Conflicts of interest are common and practically unavoidable in any modern research university. The goal of Stanford’s policies in this area is to reduce the adverse risk of these potential conflicts. In a research university setting, conflicts can compromise — or be perceived as compromising —  academic values, research integrity, and the university mission. 

All faculty members are expected to conduct their affairs in ways that do not compromise the integrity of the university or its public trust. There are times, however, when they face potential conflicts of interest, time commitment or both. Such situations do not necessarily imply wrongdoing or inappropriate activities.

Conflict of Interest

A conflict of interest occurs when there is a divergence between the private interests of faculty and their professional obligations to the university such that an independent observer might reasonably question whether the actions or decisions are determined by considerations of personal financial gain.

Conflict of Commitment

Conflict of commitment usually involves issues around time allocation. Stanford faculty owe their primary professional allegiance to the university, and their primary commitment of time and intellectual energies is expected to be devoted to the education, research, and scholarship programs of the institution.

Stanford’s Policy on Conflicts of Commitment and Interest describes the potential conflict risks regarding consulting and other professional activities. It also details the requirements for how faculty, staff, and others must address these risks through disclosure, and provides information about how Stanford reviews and assesses personal financial interests related to the university responsibilities of faculty. More information may be found in the Research Policy Handbook .

Stanford provides two web-based applications to facilitate the disclosure and management of potential conflicts of commitment and interest. One is the  Outside Professional Activities Certification System (OPACS). The other is the PHS  Travel Report module available to report travel reimbursed through Public Health Services funding including the NIH. 

Pre-Approval of Outside Professional Involvement

As of Sept. 1, 2023, Stanford faculty and research personnel can seek prior approval of outside professional activities through OPACS . Use of this secure site aims to enhance, streamline, and document the process of obtaining prior approval for certain outside professional activities following Stanford's  Policy on Conflict of Interest and Conflict of Commitment (COIC) .

A sampling of activities that require prior approval include certain employment and appointments outside of Stanford; formation or acquisition of a new entity where ownership interest is 5% or more, or the entity licenses Stanford intellectual property, certain services on boards outside of Stanford, and consulting activities. Learn more details of what activities require disclosure and get more information on OPACS through this  FAQ . All activities that were disclosed and received approval before then, do not need to be resubmitted.

Annual Disclosure Requirements

Annually, all Stanford faculty, as well as senior and key personnel on submitted proposals or funded awards, are required to certify their understanding of and compliance with Stanford’s policy. Faculty can use the secure web-based OPACS tool to file these annual certifications and to disclose their outside professional activities.

Transactional Disclosures

In addition, whenever potential conflicts arise, individuals must submit a transactional disclosure. Transactional conflicts of interest can be triggered by any of the following:

• Technology licensing arrangements or other industrial contracts including Material Transfer Agreements
• The filing of a protocol for the protection of humans, stem cells, or laboratory animals in research
• The submission of a proposal or contract to a research sponsor
• The acceptance of gifts
• Certain procurement activities

Researchers receiving Public Health Services funding through the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services can file their required travel disclosures through the PHS  Travel Report site. Researchers must disclose reimbursed or sponsored travel related to institutional responsibilities at Stanford regardless of the relationship of the travel to PHS funding when the amount in total or particular entity exceeds $5,000 during the preceding 12 months. The travel report provides more details on the requirements.

Conflict of Interest Officers by School

Requirements and policies often differ depending on the type of research engagement. COI officers are available as resources throughout the Stanford campus. Find the COI officer for your school or department in this list .

Ronda Anderson

Director, Conflict of Interest and Conflict of Commitment

[email protected]

Chief Research Conflict Officer

[email protected]

Victoria Gregg

COI Manager

[email protected]

Shannon Shankle

COI Analyst

[email protected]

Brooke Langlitz

[email protected]

Garth Huskey

[email protected]

Policies & Resources

• Research Policy Handbook - 4.1 - Policy on Conflict of Interest and Conflict of Commitment
• Research Policy Handbook - 4.2 - PHS and NSF Requirements Regarding Financial Disclosures and Agency Notifications
• Research Policy Handbook - 4.3 - Consulting and Other Outside Professional Activities by Members of the Academic Council and University Medical Line Faculty
• Research Policy Handbook - 9.1 - Inventions, Patents, and Licensing
• Research Policy Handbook - 9.2 - Copyright Policy
• Research Policy Handbook - 9.3 - Administration of Copyright Policy
• Research Policy Handbook - 9.4 - Tangible Research Property
• Research Policy Handbook - 9.5 - Other Intellectual Property: Trademarks, Patents and Proprietary Information
• Research Policy Handbook - 10.6 - Relationships Between Students (Including Postdoctoral Scholars) and Outside Entities
• COI: Training and Other Information
• COI: Contacts List by School
• Disclosing External Agreements - NIH
• Best Practices for Startups at Stanford

More about Conflict of Interest

Conflicts of interest often arise at the intersection of two fundamental missions: to push the boundaries of knowledge and to transfer that knowledge to the private sector for the benefit of the public. There may be, for example, significant personal financial incentives related to outside consulting, patenting and licensing an invention or being involved with a startup or other outside company. Such situations do not imply wrongdoing or inappropriate activities.

Considerations of personal financial gain, however, must not influence the decisions or actions of individuals in carrying out their university responsibilities. The perception that such incentives might harm research objectivity, the protection of human subjects, or adversely affect other institutional responsibilities in the areas of education, clinical care, or administrative activities is enough to mandate that such conflicts be identified and eliminated, mitigated, or managed. 

More about Conflict of Commitment

Stanford faculty members owe their primary professional allegiance to the university, and their primary commitment of time and intellectual energies should be to the education, research, and scholarship programs of the institution. The specific responsibilities and professional activities that constitute an appropriate and primary commitment will differ across schools and departments, but they should be based on a general understanding between the faculty member and their department chair and school dean. Even with such understandings in place, balancing university responsibilities with external activities — such as consulting, public service, or pro bono work — can result in conflicts regarding the allocation of time and energies. 

Whenever an individual's outside professional activities as defined by  Stanford’s Policy on Consulting and Other Outside Professional Activities exceed the permitted limits - typically 13 days per quarter - or whenever a full-time faculty member's primary professional loyalty is not to Stanford, a conflict of commitment likely exists. As part of its policy, for example, Stanford prohibits the direction of a program of research or scholarship at another institution that could be conducted appropriately at Stanford. This includes serving as a Principal Investigator elsewhere. When in doubt, faculty should discuss the situation with their department chair, school dean, or VPDoR.

Created: 06/13/24

Updated: 07/30/24

How to Be Emotionally Intelligent in Romantic Relationships

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What is emotional intelligence (EQ)?

The importance of emotional intelligence (eq), building emotional intelligence: four key skills to increasing eq, skill 1: self-management to build eq, skill 2: self-awareness for eq, skill 3: social awareness for eq, skill 4: relationship management for eq, improving emotional intelligence (eq) manage emotions to build better relationships and achieve success.

Using these 4 key skills, you can improve your emotional intelligence, build stronger relationships, and reach your goals at work, school, and in your personal life.

Emotional intelligence (also known as emotional quotient or EQ) is the ability to understand, use, and manage your own emotions in positive ways to relieve stress, communicate effectively, empathize with others, overcome challenges and defuse conflict.

Emotional intelligence helps you build stronger relationships, succeed at school and work, and achieve your career and personal goals. It can also help you to connect with your feelings, turn intention into action, and make informed decisions about what matters most to you.

The 4 Key Skills to Emotional intelligence:

• Self-management . You’re able to control impulsive feelings and behaviors, manage your emotions in healthy ways, take initiative, follow through on commitments, and adapt to changing circumstances.
• Self-awareness . You recognize your own emotions and how they affect your thoughts and behavior. You know your strengths and weaknesses, and have self-confidence.
• Social awareness . You have empathy. You can understand the emotions, needs, and concerns of other people, pick up on emotional cues, feel comfortable socially, and recognize the power dynamics in a group or organization.
• Relationship management . You know how to develop and maintain good relationships, communicate clearly, inspire and influence others, work well in a team, and manage conflict.

As we know, it’s not the smartest people who are the most successful or the most fulfilled in life. You probably know people who are academically brilliant and yet are socially inept and unsuccessful at work or in their personal relationships. Intellectual ability or your intelligence quotient (IQ) isn’t enough on its own to achieve success in life. Yes, your IQ can help you get into college, but it’s your EQ that will help you manage the stress and emotions when facing your final exams. IQ and EQ exist in tandem and are most effective when they build off one another.

Emotional intelligence affects:

Your performance at school or work.  High emotional intelligence can help you navigate the social complexities of the workplace, lead and motivate others, and excel in your career. In fact, when it comes to gauging important job candidates, many companies now rate emotional intelligence as important as technical ability and employ EQ testing before hiring.

Your physical health. If you’re unable to manage your emotions, you are probably not managing your stress either. This can lead to serious health problems. Uncontrolled stress raises blood pressure, suppresses the immune system, increases the risk of heart attacks and strokes, contributes to infertility, and speeds up the aging process. The first step to improving emotional intelligence is to learn how to manage stress.

Your mental health. Uncontrolled emotions and stress can also impact your mental health, making you vulnerable to anxiety and depression. If you are unable to understand, get comfortable with, or manage your emotions, you’ll also struggle to form strong relationships. This in turn can leave you feeling lonely and isolated and further exacerbate any mental health problems.

[Read: Building Better Mental Health]

Your relationships. By understanding your emotions and how to control them, you’re better able to express how you feel and understand how others are feeling. This allows you to communicate more effectively and forge stronger relationships, both at work and in your personal life.

Your social intelligence. Being in tune with your emotions serves a social purpose, connecting you to other people and the world around you. Social intelligence enables you to recognize friend from foe, measure another person’s interest in you, reduce stress, balance your nervous system through social communication, and feel loved and happy.

The skills that make up emotional intelligence can be learned at any time. However, it’s important to remember that there is a difference between simply learning about EQ and applying that knowledge to your life. Just because you know you should do something doesn’t mean you will—especially when you become overwhelmed by stress, which can override your best intentions.

In order to permanently change behavior in ways that stand up under pressure, you need to learn how to overcome stress in the moment, and in your relationships, in order to remain emotionally aware.

The following 4 key skills can help you build your EQ and improve your ability to manage emotions and connect with others.

In order for you to engage your EQ, you must be able to use your emotions to make constructive decisions about your behavior. When you become overly stressed, you can lose control of your emotions and the ability to act thoughtfully and appropriately.

Think about a time when stress has overwhelmed you. Was it easy to think clearly or make a rational decision? Probably not. When you become overly stressed, your ability to both think clearly and accurately assess emotions—your own and other people’s—becomes compromised.

[Read: Stress Management]

Emotions are important pieces of information that tell you about yourself and others, but in the face of stress that takes us out of our comfort zone, we can become overwhelmed and lose control of ourselves. With the ability to manage stress and stay emotionally present, you can learn to receive upsetting information without letting it override your thoughts and self-control. You’ll be able to make choices that allow you to control impulsive feelings and behaviors, manage your emotions in healthy ways, take initiative, follow through on commitments, and adapt to changing circumstances.

Managing stress is just the first step to building emotional intelligence.

The theory of attachment indicates that your current emotional experience is likely a reflection of your early life experience. Your ability to manage core feelings such as anger, sadness, fear, and joy often depends on the quality and consistency of your early life emotional experiences. If your primary caretaker as an infant understood and valued your emotions, it’s likely your emotions have become valuable assets in adult life. But, if your emotional experiences as an infant were confusing, threatening or painful, it’s likely you’ve tried to distance yourself from your emotions.

But being able to connect to your emotions—having a moment-to-moment connection with your changing emotional experience—is the key to understanding how emotion influences your thoughts and actions.

Do you experience feelings that flow, encountering one emotion after another as your experiences change from moment to moment?

Are your emotions accompanied by physical sensations that you experience in places like your stomach, throat, or chest?

Do you experience individual feelings and emotions, such as anger, sadness, fear, and joy, each of which is evident in subtle facial expressions?

Can you experience intense feelings that are strong enough to capture both your attention and that of others?

Do you pay attention to your emotions? Do they factor into your decision making?

If any of these experiences are unfamiliar, you may have “turned down” or “turned off” your emotions. In order to build EQ—and become emotionally healthy—you must reconnect to your core emotions, accept them, and become comfortable with them. You can achieve this through the practice of mindfulness.

[Listen: Mindful Breathing Meditation]

Mindfulness is the practice of purposely focusing your attention on the present moment—and without judgment. The cultivation of mindfulness has roots in Buddhism, but most religions include some type of similar prayer or meditation technique. Mindfulness helps shift your preoccupation with thought toward an appreciation of the moment, your physical and emotional sensations, and brings a larger perspective on life. Mindfulness calms and focuses you, making you more self-aware in the process.

Developing emotional awareness

It’s important that you learn how to manage stress first, so you’ll feel more comfortable reconnecting to strong or unpleasant emotions and changing how you experience and respond to your feelings. You can develop your emotional awareness by using HelpGuide’s free Emotional Intelligence Toolkit .

Social awareness enables you to recognize and interpret the mainly nonverbal cues others are constantly using to communicate with you. These cues let you know how others are really feeling, how their emotional state is changing from moment to moment, and what’s truly important to them.

[Read: Effective Communication]

When groups of people send out similar nonverbal cues, you’re able to read and understand the power dynamics and shared emotional experiences of the group. In short, you’re empathetic and socially comfortable.

Using mindfulness to build social awareness

To build social awareness, you need to recognize the importance of mindfulness in the social process. After all, you can’t pick up on subtle nonverbal cues when you’re in your own head, thinking about other things, or simply zoning out on your phone. Social awareness requires your presence in the moment. While many of us pride ourselves on an ability to multitask, this means that you’ll miss the subtle emotional shifts taking place in other people that help you fully understand them.

• You are actually more likely to further your social goals by setting other thoughts aside and focusing on the interaction itself.
• Following the flow of another person’s emotional responses is a give-and-take process that requires you to also pay attention to the changes in your own emotional experience.
• Paying attention to others doesn’t diminish your own self-awareness. By investing the time and effort to really pay attention to others, you’ll actually gain insight into your own emotional state as well as your values and beliefs. For example, if you feel discomfort hearing others express certain views, you’ll have learned something important about yourself.

Speak to a Licensed Therapist

BetterHelp is an online therapy service that matches you to licensed, accredited therapists who can help with depression, anxiety, relationships, and more. Take the assessment and get matched with a therapist in as little as 48 hours.

Working well with others is a process that begins with emotional awareness and your ability to recognize and understand what other people are experiencing. Once emotional awareness is in play, you can effectively develop additional social/emotional skills that will make your relationships more effective, fruitful, and fulfilling.

Become aware of how effectively you use nonverbal communication. It’s impossible to avoid sending nonverbal messages to others about what you think and feel. The many muscles in the face, especially those around the eyes, nose, mouth and forehead, help you to wordlessly convey your own emotions as well as read other peoples’ emotional intent. The emotional part of your brain is always on—and even if you ignore its messages—others won’t. Recognizing the nonverbal messages that you send to others can play a huge part in improving your relationships.

Use humor and play to relieve stress. Humor, laughter and play are natural antidotes to stress. They lessen your burdens and help you keep things in perspective. Laughter brings your nervous system into balance, reducing stress, calming you down, sharpening your mind and making you more empathic.

[Read: How to Be Emotionally Intelligent in Romantic Relationships]

Learn to see conflict as an opportunity to grow closer to others. Conflict and disagreements are inevitable in human relationships. Two people can’t possibly have the same needs, opinions, and expectations at all times. However, that needn’t be a bad thing. Resolving conflict in healthy, constructive ways can strengthen trust between people. When conflict isn’t perceived as threatening or punishing, it fosters freedom, creativity, and safety in relationships.

More Information

• Gilar-Corbi, R., Pozo-Rico, T., Sánchez, B., & Castejón, J.-L. (2019). Can emotional intelligence be improved? A randomized experimental study of a business-oriented EI training program for senior managers. PLOS ONE , 14(10), e0224254. Link
• How to Improve Your Emotional Intelligence—Professional Development | Harvard DCE . (n.d.). Retrieved June 18, 2022, from Link
• Jiménez-Picón, N., Romero-Martín, M., Ponce-Blandón, J. A., Ramirez-Baena, L., Palomo-Lara, J. C., & Gómez-Salgado, J. (2021). The Relationship between Mindfulness and Emotional Intelligence as a Protective Factor for Healthcare Professionals: Systematic Review. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health , 18(10), 5491. Link
• Segal, Jeanne. The Language of Emotional Intelligence: The Five Essential Tools for Building Powerful and Effective Relationships. 1st edition. McGraw Hill, 2008. Link
• Segal, Jeanne S. Raising Your Emotional Intelligence: A Practical Guide–A Hands-on Program for Harnessing the Power of Your Instincts and Emotions. 1st edition. Holt Paperbacks, 2015. Link

More in Emotional Intelligence

Learn why emotional intelligence matters in romantic relationships

Tools for managing emotions and bringing your life into balance

Stress Management

How to reduce, prevent, and relieve stress

Parenting strategies to help you build empathy and emotional awareness

Learn how emotional intelligence can help strengthen bonds

How EQ can make you a better employee, co-worker, or boss

To be an effective leader, emotional intelligence is an essential skill

VIDEO: Why Emotions Matter

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How to Manage Conflict in the Workplace: 5 Practical Tips

By Robbie Gould on 08/15/2024

What if managing conflict in the workplace came down to understanding conflict styles? Dr. Brein Haugen’s conflict resolution training can provide valuable insights into how you can identify your own and others' conflict styles to manage disputes more effectively.

If you recognize and adapt to different conflict styles, you can achieve better communication and a faster resolution to the problem. Understand these styles and approach conflicts more strategically and empathetically, leading to more productive outcomes.

Conflict can occur nearly anywhere with just about anyone, but it is especially prevalent in professional environments where diverse individuals with different perspectives and goals must collaborate. Workplace conflict often arises due to miscommunications, differing values, competition for resources or personality clashes. These workplace conflicts can be exacerbated by stress, unclear job roles or power dynamics.

People naturally disagree, and conflicts arise often. And that's alright. Actually, it's wonderful!

Our varying perspectives can steer us toward dialogue, foster a better understanding of a situation and (hopefully) lead to meaningful change.

It may seem counterintuitive, but conflict is a major element of our personal and professional success and well-being. Conflict allows for the expression of different perspectives – which can bring about new ideas, elevate an existing idea, or beg for a reexamination of an old one.

Find your natural conflict style

Think of a word describing how you reacted the last time you had a conflict.

Stressed, silent, angry, anxious, shut-down, uncomfortable, confused – these are the familiar responses, and it’s not surprising – conflict can be tough.

It’s important to establish that there is no correct conflict style. But there are situations that call for one conflict style over another. There’s extreme value in knowing how and when to use a specific conflict style.

You won’t change people’s conflict styles. However, you can use tools to identify your own style, understand others' styles, and even uncover the root causes of a conflict.

Try this exercise offered by Dr. Haugen’s webinar to determine your conflict style. Grab a pen and write down a number from 1 (rarely) to 5 (always) for each statement, based on what best describes you.

• If someone disagrees with me, I vigorously defend my side of the issue.
• I go along with suggestions from peers, even if I don’t agree with them.
• I give and take so an agreement can be reached.
• I keep my opinions to myself rather than openly disagree with people.
• In disagreements or negotiations, I try to find the best possible solutions for both sides by sharing information.
• I try to reach a middle ground in disputes with other people.
• I go along with the wishes of people who have different points of view than my own .
• I refrain from openly debating issues where there is disagreement.
• In negotiations, I hold on to my position rather than give in.
• I try to solve conflicts that benefit both me and the other person.
• I let peers have their way rather than jeopardize our relationship.
• I try to win my position in a discussion.
• I investigate conflicts with peers so that we can discover solutions that benefit both of us.
• It is not worth the time and trouble discussing my differences of opinion with other people.
• To reach an agreement, I give up some things in exchange for others.

Tallying the Results

After responding to each statement with a numerical value, add the correlating responses to find your conflict style. The highest total number signifies your strongest conflict style. Here’s the formula:

• Competing : Add the number responses from statements 1+ 9 + and 12 = ____
• Accommodating : Add the number responses from statements 2, 7, 11 = ____
• Compromising : Add the number responses from statements 3, 6, 15 = ____
• Avoiding : Add the number responses from statements 4, 8, 14 = ____
• Collaborating : Add the number responses from statements 5, 10, 13 = ____

See how these conflict styles relate to one another in this video.

Conflict Management: What’s Your Style

The main types of conflict styles

There are several types of conflict styles. Some ignore conflict, some seek peaceful resolutions and some step right into it ready to bite. There are many ways to address conflict, and understanding the different styles is crucial for managing them more effectively.

Each style has its own approach to conflict management, with unique strengths and weaknesses. By recognizing these styles, you hold the power to choose the most appropriate response for each situation.

#1. The Competing conflict style

Assertive and uncooperative, these individuals focus on their own goals. They use whatever power is necessary to achieve their position. Competing can also involve standing up for your rights, defending a stance you believe is correct or simply trying to win.

Pros and cons of the competing conflict style

• Good for short term conflict resolution, quick decisions, and emergencies
• Unpopular course of action needs to be taken
• Protect yourself from being taken advantage of
• Assert needs and desires which is important in certain situations
• Encourage personal growth and challenge individuals
• Can become overly competitive and want to win at any cost
• Creates hostility and aggression
• Win-lose approach. One side’s needs are met while the other side’s needs are not.

#2. The Accommodating conflict style

Unassertive and cooperative, the accommodating conflict style is the opposite of competing.

These individuals prioritize others' concerns over their own, often engaging in self-sacrifice. Accommodating can manifest as selfless generosity or charity, complying with someone else's demands against their own preferences, or conceding to another's viewpoint.

Pros and cons of accommodating conflict style

• People are interested in preserving the peace and maintaining the most harmonious circumstances possible.
• Mistakes are tolerated
• Build up social credit for future use
• Helps employees develop by allowing them to have freedom to experiment and learn from their mistakes.
• Sense of teamwork and community
• Lack assertiveness
• Sacrificing one’s own needs and desires
• Cause feelings of frustration and resentment if one feels their priorities are constantly ignored

#3. The Avoiding conflict style

Unassertive and uncooperative, these individuals neither pursue their own concerns nor those of others. They tend to avoid conflict altogether. Avoiding may involve diplomatically stepping aside on an issue, postponing it until a better time, or withdrawing from a tense or threatening situation.

Pros and cons of the avoiding conflict style

• Can be effective when conflict is exceedingly trivial and to pursue a solution would ultimately be time-consuming and wasteful
• Can keep arguments from happening – peaceful environment
• Issues don’t get resolved
• Communication suffers
• Damage relationships
• Creates tension and makes people feel uneasy around one another
• Missing out on the chance to learn and grow from difficult situations

#4. The Compromising conflict style

Both assertive and cooperative, these individuals aim to find mutually acceptable solutions that satisfy both parties to some extent.

This approach strikes a balance between the competing and accommodating conflict styles. It addresses issues more directly than avoiding but doesn't delve as deeply as collaborating. Compromising may involve splitting the difference, making concessions, or finding a middle ground.

Pros and cons of the compromising conflict style

• Both parties get what they want
• First approach to manage conflict, but least effective in managing tension
• Agree to disagree – finding middle ground and remaining flexible
• Creates a sense of fairness and balance
• Encourages cooperation and communication to find a mutually acceptable solution
• People may feel like they’re giving up too much
• Feelings of dissatisfaction
• Focusing on finding a middle ground could cause one to compromise their own needs
• Collaborating conflict style

#5. The Collaborating conflict style

Assertive and collaborative, individuals with the collaborating conflict style aim to work with others to find a solution that fully satisfies both parties' concerns.

This approach involves delving into an issue to uncover underlying concerns and finding an alternative solution that addresses them both.

Collaborating can involve exploring a disagreement to learn from each other's insights, resolving conditions that might lead to competition for resources, or confronting issues to find a creative solution.

Pros and cons of the collaborating conflict style

• Explore alternative ideas
• Could benefit everyone involved
• Leads to mutual respect and understanding
• Fosters creativity, innovation, thinking outside the box, and considering multiple perspectives
• If there is a lack of trust and communication, it can be tough to find a mutually beneficial solution
• Time-consuming to produce the perfect plan

Five conflict resolution strategies

Effective conflict resolution skills are important because they foster a harmonious and productive environment, whether in the workplace or in personal relationships.

Addressing conflict allows for the healthy expression of differing viewpoints, leading to better understanding and innovative solutions. Resolving conflict also helps to maintain strong relationships and prevent the escalation of disputes, including resentment or a sense of unfairness.

Here are five conflict resolution strategies Dr. Haugen recommends, along with how you can apply them.

• Active Listening

Truly listen to the other person's perspective without interrupting. Show empathy and validate their feelings.

How to Apply: Maintain eye contact, nod in agreement, and paraphrase what they say to ensure you understand their point of view.

• Collaborative Problem Solving

Work together to find a solution that satisfies both parties. Focus on mutual goals and interests rather than individual positions.

How to Apply: Identify common ground, brainstorm potential solutions, and agree on the best course of action that benefits everyone involved.

Each party gives up something to reach a mutually acceptable solution. This strategy involves finding a middle ground.

How to Apply: Discuss and negotiate to identify aspects each party is willing to concede. Aim for a solution that meets the most important needs of both sides.

Involve a neutral third party to facilitate a resolution. The mediator helps clarify issues and guide the parties toward an agreement.

How to Apply: Select a trained mediator or an unbiased person trusted by both parties. Allow them to manage the discussion and suggest possible solutions.

• Setting Ground Rules

Establish clear guidelines for how conflicts should be addressed. This strategy helps ensure that discussions remain respectful and productive.

How to Apply: Agree on rules such as no interrupting, no personal attacks, and focusing on the issue at hand rather than personal grievances. Reiterate these rules during conflict discussions to maintain order and respect.

Explore other ways to manage

As you can see, effective management strategies take more than just your good intentions.

Managing is hard work, and it gets harder when conflict arises. For more ideas on what to do, check out Back on Track: 7 Tips for Managers Dealing With Difficult Employees .

About the presenter

Dr. Brein Haugen holds a bachelor's degree in psychology from North Dakota State, a master's degree specializing in industrial and organizational psychology from the Chicago School of Professional Psychology, and a PhD in psychology from Capella University. With a focus on maintaining millennials in the workforce, she has been a dedicated faculty member at Rasmussen for over 17 years. She is currently the Campus Executive Director at the Fargo Moorhead Campus .

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5 Conflict Resolution Strategies for Leaders: Navigating Challenges with Confidence

In any organization, conflicts are inevitable. Whether it’s a disagreement over resources, differences in work styles, or clashing personalities, problems in the workplace can significantly impact team dynamics, morale, and overall performance.

While it can be easy to sweep these issues under the rug, leaders are responsible for maintaining a productive and harmonious workplace. As a leader, your ability to manage and resolve conflicts can have a transformative impact on the day-to-day efficiency (and overall success) of your organization.

If you’re a leader looking to develop the skills necessary to address these inevitable issues, explore these five essential strategies for conflict resolution.

Scenario snapshot: You recently began managing a small customer service team at a private company. Before long, you start to notice that two employees, Brenda and Jermaine, rarely acknowledge one another despite their similar scope of duties. When they engage, the interactions often seem passive-aggressive and argumentative. As their leader, how can you intervene before tensions rise further?

1. Active Listening — the foundation of understanding

When you step into a leadership role , seeing the big-picture of an office-place issue isn’t enough. Even more essential is your ability to understand and listen to the perspectives of those involved.

Enter active listening, the cornerstone of effective conflict resolution. Deeper than simply hearing the details of a problem, active listening involves paying full attention to the issue — concentrating, responding, and remembering what your team members are saying.

In addition to helping you understand the root cause of the issue, tackling conflicts through active listening builds trust, opens channels for honest communication, and helps your employees feel valued and understood.

Scenario snapshot: Seeking answers about the conflict on your team, you ask the assistant manager why Brenda and Jermaine’s relationship seems so strained. She informs you that Brenda and Jermaine have been in an ongoing dispute over the best methods for organizing and leveraging customer data. What are some steps you can take to gain a better understanding of the issue?

2. Empathy — stepping into their shoes

Empathy involves understanding and sharing the feelings of others.

By empathizing with team members in the face of conflict, you can better appreciate their perspectives and the emotions driving their behavior. In turn, this can lead to more compassionate and effective resolutions. Demonstrating empathy can also de-escalate tension, making people feel heard and respected — an essential element for resolving conflicts amicably.

Scenario snapshot: During a one-on-one meeting with Brenda, she explains that the new system she’s been developing will streamline data through state-of-the-art technology like automation and AI — saving the team valuable time and resources. On the other hand, as a veteran employee, Jermaine has used the same system for years and sees no need for change. How can you demonstrate an appreciation for both parties’ perspectives?

3. Clear and open communication — avoiding misunderstandings

Miscommunication often lies at the heart of conflicts.

As a leader, proactively fostering an environment where clear and open communication is encouraged can be a critical component in preventing workplace problems. Setting clear expectations for healthy communication — and upholding those expectations yourself — can have a transformative effect on organizational culture .

Even if your team communicates clearly and respectfully, interpersonal issues can’t always be avoided. When conflicts arise, ensure that all parties can express their viewpoints without interruption. Clarify any misunderstandings and keep the dialogue focused on resolving the issue.

Scenario snapshot: When you check in with Jermaine, he shares that his concerns about Brenda’s organizational system stem from his unfamiliarity with AI and automation. He explains that when he tries to express his anxieties to Brenda, she dismisses his worries and says his methods are outdated. What can you do to facilitate an open, honest, and productive conversation between Brenda and Jermaine?

Ready to become the leader you always wish you had? Download your free MSOL Get Started guide and learn more about earning your degree the Goodwin way!

4. remaining neutral — avoiding bias.

Whether the conflict you’re up against is personal or professional, it’s always important to remain neutral and avoid taking sides.

Showing favoritism can exacerbate tensions, damage your credibility, and make people wary of seeking your guidance in the future. To demonstrate objective problem-solving, focus on the facts and the specific behaviors contributing to the conflict. By refusing to show bias, you can facilitate a more objective and fair resolution process.

Scenario snapshot: Now that you’ve privately spoken to Brenda and Jermaine, you understand the factors contributing to their argument. While you agree that Brenda’s system is more effective, you empathize with Jermaine’s concerns and appreciate his perspective. How can you move forward without appearing to favor one employee over the other?

5. Collaborative problem-solving — finding win-win solutions

Although the potential of disappointing someone can make conflict resolution seem daunting, not every remedy has to benefit a single winner.

Encourage a collaborative approach to conflict resolution where all parties work together to find mutually beneficial solutions. A good starting point is identifying common goals, exploring various options, and negotiating to reach an agreement that satisfies everyone involved. Collaborative problem-solving not only resolves the immediate conflict but also fosters a culture of teamwork and cooperation.

Scenario snapshot: After facilitating a small group meeting, Brenda learns that Jermaine’s resistance to adopting her new system comes from his anxiety about navigating automated technology. How can Brenda and Jermaine find a solution that benefits them both?

Bonus tip — seeking mediation

In some cases, conflicts may be too complex or emotionally charged for leaders to handle alone.

In such situations, seeking the help of a neutral third party, such as a mediator, can be beneficial. A mediator can facilitate discussions, help clarify issues, and guide the parties towards a resolution. Mediation can be particularly useful in resolving disputes that involve deep-seated issues or multiple stakeholders.

Cultivating a conflict-resilient organization

Effective conflict resolution is critical for fostering a positive and productive workplace. By practicing active listening, demonstrating empathy, promoting clear communication, remaining neutral, encouraging collaborative problem-solving, and seeking mediation when necessary, you can create a conflict-resilient workplace.

At Goodwin University, our Master of Science in Organizational Leadership (MSOL) program equips leaders with the skills and knowledge to manage and resolve conflicts effectively. Our comprehensive curriculum blends theoretical foundations with practical applications, preparing you to lead with integrity, empathy, and confidence.

Discover how you can become a transformative leader in today’s diverse and dynamic organizational landscape — learn more about our MSOL program today!